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Once pirates, then traders, the British were now the rulers of millions of people overseas – and not just in India. Thanks to a combination of naval and financial muscle they had become the winners in the European race for empire.

— Niall Ferguson Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003)

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More quotes by Niall Ferguson

Economic history is not politically correct. Many on the left therefore struggle with its findings.

Even small numbers of evangelical missionaries can achieve a good deal, furnished as they are with substantial funds from congregations at home.

Colossus: the Price of America’s Empire. Penguin (2004)

For better, for worse – fair and foul – the world we know today is in large measure the product of Britain’s age of Empire.

Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003)

The financial crisis is really a relatively small historic phenomenon, which has accelerated this huge shift, which ends half a millennium of Western ascendancy.

The West may collapse very suddenly. Complex civilizations do that, because they operate, most of the time, on the edge of chaos.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Niall Ferguson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.