Mad dogs and Englishmen - Ashley Jackson

Mad Dogs and Englishmen is a visually arresting and richly informative tour of the British Empire at its height, when its boundaries stretched from Cairo to Cape Town and from Winnipeg to Wagga-Wagga. The empire 'on which the sun never sets' embraced peoples as diverse as head-hunting Dyaks, Eskimos, Fulani horsemen, Gulf sheikhs, Canadian hunters, Zoroastrian pilgrims, and caparisoned maharajahs.

In a sequence of thematic chapters examining every aspect of the Empire, from the imperial monarchy to the armed forces, and from district commissioners to dependent territories, Mad Dogs and Englishmen describes the shape and functioning of the largest imperium in world history. Each chapter consists of a lively and accessible essay, accompanied by a vivid and array of captioned pictures, evoking the fascinating spectacle that the British Empire presented to its citizens: the sights, scenes, and organizations that shaped the world view of people in Britain and its colonies and Dominions beyond the seas.