Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Pax Britannica
    Pax Britannica
    Pax Britannica
    Audiobook17 hours

    Pax Britannica

    Written by Jan Morris

    Narrated by Roy McMillan

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The Pax Britannica trilogy is Jan Morris’s masterly telling of the British Empire from the accession of Queen Victoria to the death of Winston Churchill. It is a towering achievement: informative, accessible, entertaining and written with all her usual bravura. Pax Britannica, the second volume, is a snapshot of the Empire at the Diamond Jubilee of 1897. It looks at what made up the Empire – from adventurers and politicians to communications and infrastructure, as well as anomalies and eccentricities. This humane overview also examines the muddle of jumbled ideologies behind it, and how they affected its 370 million people.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateJul 1, 2011
    ISBN9781843794707
    Pax Britannica

    More audiobooks from Jan Morris

    Related to Pax Britannica

    Related audiobooks

    European History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Crisis Manager

      Jan 20, 2022

      The Crisis Manager
      1 min read

    • Article

      Wilhelm II

      May 13, 2021

      Wilhelm II
      1 min read

    • Article

      Oceans Between Us

      Oct 29, 2020

      Oceans Between Us
      2 min read

    • Article

      A Legacy Of Hope And Glory

      Jun 9, 2021

      DESPITE my birthplace in the Mississippi Delta and my early years in schools whose teachers tried hard to educate the children in the poorest state in the Union, I reckon I had a head start when I arrived in Suffolk as the bride of a farmer. White ch

      3 min read

    • Article

      Books & co

      Sep 11, 2020

      back to school! Where will your reading take you this autumn? By Ian H Waller Subtitled ‘Unlocking the Mysteries of the Manor for Family Historians’, Introducing Manorial Records really does do this – making the intriguing, but perhaps daunting, topi

      5 min read

    • Article

      Britain’s Black Trailblazers

      Oct 1, 2020

      Britain’s Black Trailblazers
      14 min read

    • Article

      THE FIRST (and last) KING of HAITI

      Jan 26, 2023

      PAUL CLAMMER Paul Clammer is a freelance writer and author with over 40 guidebooks for Lonely Planet and the Bradt Travel Guides' book Haiti, the first standalone book for the country in English since the 1980s. He's been travelling to Haiti since 20

      8 min read

    • Article

      Men Overboard

      Dec 6, 2019

      Men Overboard
      5 min read

    • Article

      Slavery’s Painful Legacy

      Sep 29, 2022

      Slavery’s Painful Legacy
      6 min read

    • Article

      Anniversaries

      Feb 17, 2022

      Anniversaries
      4 min read

    • Article

      Hidden Histories

      Aug 6, 2020

      During the American Revolution, the British made an extraordinary promise. They issued proclamations informing all slaves whose owners had joined the rebellion that, if they came over to the British lines, they would be freed. Thousands did exactly t

      2 min read

    • Article

      Raising The Standard

      Feb 21, 2020

      Raising The Standard
      4 min read

    • Article

      Freaky Fascinations

      Feb 27, 2020

      Freaky Fascinations
      10 min read

    • Article

      Empire On The Brink

      Sep 28, 2023

      Empire On The Brink
      10 min read

    • Article

      Plundered: An Introductory Excerpt from McSweeney’s #65

      Jan 5, 2022

      Our goal in selecting texts from across this vast expanse and uniting them under this rubric is to reclaim and redistribute the name America, fraught provenance and all, and to assert the plurality contained within its singular as a constellation rat

      9 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      May 11, 2023

      I must add a name to Richard Vinen’s piece (April) on the first families of Birmingham: Nettlefold. John Sutton Nettlefold was married to Margaret Chamberlain and became chairman of the Housing Committee for the City of Birmingham. Like Cadbury, he c

      4 min read

    • Article

      History Of Micronations

      Mar 23, 2023

      History Of Micronations
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Empty Plinth

      Apr 5, 2024

      The Empty Plinth
      17 min read

    • Article

      Anniversaries

      Jan 21, 2021

      Edward IV’s brother is apparently drowned in a barrel of wine Even by the standards of medieval England, George, Duke of Clarence met a colourful end. “Take him on the costard with the hilts of thy sword,” says one of his two murderers in Shakespeare

      5 min read

    • Article

      All That Glitters

      Apr 16, 2020

      All That Glitters
      9 min read

    • Article

      Hell On High water

      Dec 28, 2022

      Hell On High water
      8 min read

    • Article

      The West Africa Squadron

      Dec 19, 2017

      The West Africa Squadron
      8 min read

    • Article

      BOOKS & PODCASTS

      Feb 16, 2023

      BOOKS & PODCASTS
      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Pax Britannica

    4.5/5

    74 ratings7 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Not as much fun as the first book in the trilogy. Nonetheless this is a fine picture of the British Empire at the time of Queen Victoria's jubilee in the late 19th century. Also, there is a good explanation regarding why the Empire could not last. Again, we see Gladstone, Disraeli, Lord Salisbury, etc. This shows the white colonies such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand identified with Great Britain but would not fiancé the British Navy. Some Brits truly had the imperial attitude:

      It is with nations as with men ---
      One must be first, we are the mightiest,
      The heirs of Rome.
      By John Davidson

      Or the British attitude to native subjects:

      Whatever happens we have got
      The Maxim gun and they have not!

      Then there is the reminder by Kipling in Recessional in 1897:

      Far called, our navies melt away;
      On dune and headland sinks the fire;
      Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
      Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
      Judge of the nations, spare us yet,
      Lest we forget---lest we forget!
    • 3/5
      This a good first book dealing with the complexities of that curious construction "the Empiah". Perhaps one should also read "King -of the Khyber Rifles" or the Memoirs of John Masters at the same time. But it's smooth and a polished presentation.
    • 5/5
      Enlightening and thoroughly entertaining. Despite the fact that this book was written in 1965 it has great staying power. Beautifully written, and narrated as though it was a one-man audio play.
    • 4/5
      “To be born British, is to win in the lottery of life.”

      One of my favourite audiobooks on Scribd, so far.

      History told with a heavy dose of verisimilitude and a light touch.

      Jan Morris is a gifted writer who has thoroughly researched her subject. This monumental trilogy, the Pax Britannica, is obviously a labour of love that deftly and artfully brings the subject to life.

      This volume is the 2nd volume of the series. It covers one of the most interesting and exciting periods in Britain’s long, rich, historical goldmine.

      Masterful narration, fits the subject matter absolutely perfectly.
    • 4/5
      Second part of Morris's British empire trilogy, providing a survey of Britain's overseas possessions at the high point of "new imperialism", Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee of 1897. Like the first part, it's a very lively read, full of colour and anecdote, and occasionally quite satirical, but the analysis is mostly rather indirect. We're allowed to work out for ourselves that empire may have been a good thing for a few middle-class investors and provided useful employment for the sons of the indigent upper classes, but it didn't usually do much good for the people of the countries Britain tried to rule, or indeed for the great mass of the working classes back home.
    • 5/5
      A very comprehensive and objective description of British imperialism at its high noon and a perceptive critique of the contradictions, ideologies and sentiments that characterized it.
    • 5/5
      The conclusion to the best survey of the British Empire that I have ever read.