Darwin unfurls the British Empire's beginnings and decline and its range of forms of rule, from settler colonies to island enclaves, from the princely states of India to ramshackle trading posts. Far from ever having a "master plan," the British Empire was controlled by a range of interests often at loggerheads with one another and was as much driven on by others' weaknesses as by its own strength. It shows, too, that the empire was never stable: to govern was a violent process, inevitably creating wars and rebellions. UNFINISHED EMPIRE is a nuanced history of the most complex polity the world has ever known, and a serious attempt to describe the diverse, contradictory ways-from the military to the cultural-in which empires really function.