John Darwin’s *Unfinished Empire*

The subtitle is The Global Expansion of Britain.  The book received strong reviews in the UK and these are justified.  Here is the bottom line: I started it Wednesday, have read parts of it every day, and I am still reading it.  There is interesting and fresh material on almost every page.  Think of it as a selective history of the building of the British empire.

So far it is my favorite non-fiction book of 2013.  Here is one good WSJ review.