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In 1615 the British Isles had been an economically unremarkable, politically fractious and strategically second-class entity. Two hundred years later Great Britain had acquired the largest empire the world had ever seen, encompassing forty-three colonies in five continents.

— 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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