One Fine Day, Matthew Parker
One Fine Day, Matthew Parker
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One Fine Day
Britain's Empire on the Brink

Author: Matthew Parker

Narrator: Ben Onwukwe

Unabridged: 27 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 09/26/2023

Synopsis

This critical historical exploration shows a portrait of the British Empire at both the peak of its global reach—and the moment it began to topple.
 
September 29, 1923. Once the Palestine Mandate officially takes effect, the British Empire—now covering a quarter of the world’s land and boasting a population of 460 million—is the largest the world has ever seen. But it is also an empire in rapid transition.
 
Nationalist and Pan-African movements are gaining momentum throughout West Africa, thanks as much to Marcus Garvey as to the sustained efforts of local activists and politicians.
 
On far-flung Ocean Island in the Pacific, highly profitable phosphate extraction threatens to render the land uninhabitable for its native population—and colonial officials are torn between their integrity and their careers.
 
And in India, Jawaharlal Nehru and fellow nationalists wonder despairingly about the future of the independence movement as Gandhi languishes in prison.
 
Moving from London to Kuala Lumpur, Australia to the West Indies, One Fine Day is a breathtaking and unflinching tour of the British Empire at its pinnacle. Here the Empire is at its biggest; but it is on a precipice, beset with debts and doubts as liberation movements emerge to undo the colonial era, and see the sun set on the Empire.

About Matthew Parker

Matthew Parker was born in Central America and spent part of his childhood in the West Indies, acquiring a lifelong fascination with the history of the region. He has worked as a writer, an editorial consultant, a commissioning editor, and a contributor to history television projects, and has written for a number of newspapers and magazines. Matthew's books include Panama Fever, the story of the building of the Panama Canal, and Monte Cassino: The Hardest-Fought Battle of World War II. He lives in London.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Brendan

To say that I was excited to see Matthew Parker's new book One Fine Day was available is a massive understatement. One of Parker's previous books The Sugar Barons is a personal favorite and I knew what to expect before jumping in. I expected Parker to write effortlessly and for him to have a keen ey......more

Goodreads review by Stephen

A clever take on the decline of the British empire (which reached its geographical zenith on 29th September 1923). Matthew Parker uses this date to circumvent the globe from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands to Jamaica using contemporary sources, government reports to focus on the key tensions which ha......more

Goodreads review by Janalyn

This book covers a day in September in 1923 and talks about everywhere the Empire rained from Australia it’s taking over all of China the islands they were dismantling for profit despite having 1000 residents and much much more. This book missed nothing and the author covered the good the bad and th......more

Goodreads review by Liam

It took only the reading of a few chapters for this mediocre history to result in a massive wave of ennui and disaffection to overwhelming me. This is not a bad book, if you have read absolutely nothing about the British overseas exploits anywhere in the world post the American revolution, but if yo......more

Quotes

“There is something Shakespearian about Matthew Parker’s insightful argument that it was at exactly the time the British Empire reached its greatest territorial size that the factors coalesced which were to destroy it. Whether you regard the British Empire as an overall boon—as I do—or as an abomination, Parker has rendered a signal service by convincingly pinpointing the exact fulcrum moment in its half-millennium-long history.”—Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill

“Marvellous. Escapes the inane, balance-sheet view of empire and sees it in its full complexity.”—Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland

“Extraordinary. Parker’s magisterial sweep through one day of British imperial history and culture plunges us into the global complexity of the British Empire, bringing the world of a century ago to fresh, vivid life. An astonishing achievement.”—Alex von Tunzelmann, author of Indian Summer and Fallen Idols

“An engrossing and wide-ranging account of the zenith of the British Empire—with all the contradictions, brittleness, ambition and hubris that moment entailed. Across Continents and characters, Matthew Parker provides a new, global history of British imperialism which feels both epic and immediate.”—Tristram Hunt, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum

“Exquisitely crafted and beautifully written, full of delicious detail and extraordinary insight.”—Augustus Casely-Hayford, OBE, curator, cultural historian, and director of V&A East

“A panoramic view of the British Empire on September 29, 1923… Parker vividly demonstrates the empire’s vast reach and the ‘impossibly conflicting interests between government [and] the governed.’…Accessible and sturdy, this expansive account provides solid ground for understanding the decline of the British Empire. It’s an eye-opening and a unique vantage point from which to study 20th-century history.”—Publishers Weekly

“An ambitious history of the beginning of the end of vast dominions of the British Empire on Sept. 29, 1923… a multilayered portrait, with deep contextual background…An impressive work of research and synthesis tracing the end of an empire.”—Kirkus

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