The introduction and conclusion contain Ferguson's pro-empire arguments, while the body of the book is primarily a concise history of the British empire. The sections laying out his somewhat contrarian position are more interesting and probably more useful to readers than the actual historical narrative. I'm sure many readers will either be familiar with the covered events or uninterested in them. The history does provide a different perspective on some well-known historical atrocities, tragedies, choices, etc. Ferguson's argument would have benefited from deeper comparative and quantitative approaches. The reader has to take his word a bit on some of his descriptive claims about the economic effects of empire. I'm fine doing that but I'm sure there are readers disinclined to accept his claims. It would also be nice to see an updated version of this work with a deeper look at America's de facto empire. Ferguson does provide a little of this in Doom, but the claims about China in there now seem complicated by what's happened since its publication too.