> The largest empire the world has ever seen whittled down to its homeland, a naval base in the med, and some godforsaken islands in the south atlantic. I'd cal

> The largest empire the world has ever seen whittled down to its homeland, a naval base in the med, and some godforsaken islands in the south atlantic. I'd call that pretty disastrous. Actually, I would count the graceful degradation of the British empire (i.e without the entire country going to hell) as quite an achievement - particularly considering it happened with a surprisingly low level of long-term resentment incurred from the former colonies. Further, the claim that it was due to poor management more than, for example, two ludicrously expensive wars, is more than a touch disingenuous. I suppose one could argue that the first of those wars was rather a waste, but Britain was hardly the only country to be affected by that particular insanity.