The British empire was undoubtedly the most successful colonial and imperial project of the last 300 years, if success means conquest and exploitation of vast swathes of the planet.
While the empire effectively ended in the two decades from 1947 to 1967, its impact on the modern world is still unfolding.
Other European former colonial powers have put their history of imperial conquest behind them, and broadly accepted their status as middle powers, but this cannot be said of Britain.
The last great catastrophes imposed by the British empire in its death throes were the partition of India in 1947 that caused 1 million deaths and the displacement of 15 million people; and the creation of Israel, supported by the major UN powers, but opposed by the Arab states whose region it was carved from, dispossessing 750,000 Palestinians in 1948.
Three post-colonial states that emerged from the British empire have had an outsized impact on 21st-century global politics: the United States, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
