Gulf impassable, breach indescribable On the feelings of class inferiority and resentment. Crime novels, and not only they of British origins, surely wouldn’t exist without some class consciousness. The British Empire was defined by it. Our author has witnessed it all. More of his musings to follow. I It was the first week of January 1970 and I was finishing up my Ph.D. at University College London in Bloomsbury. It was damp and cold in the underground hydraulics laboratory, buried 6 feet below the neoclassical Gower street quadrangle[1]. The Carnaby Street
Read More My End of Empire by Philip B. Williams The British crime novel surely wouldn’t exist without some class consciousness. The British Empire was defined by it. Our author was witness to it’s end at a far away place. More of his musings to follow. Last October I went to a Halloween costume party. I dug out an authentic mildewed solar topee, original British army long khaki shorts, and a bedraggled bush jacket that had been moldering in my basement for decades and went dressed as a dissolute British District Commissioner beached in
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