Imperialism in the eyes of the world is still Europe s original sin, even though the empires themselves have long since disappeared. Among the most egregious of imperial acts was Victorian Britain s seemingly random partition of Africa. In this classic work of history, a standard text for generations of students and historians now again available, the authors provide a unique account of the motives that went into the continent s partition. Distrusting mechanistic explanations in terms of economic growth or the European balance, the authors consider the intentions in the minds of the...