The Sun Finally Sets on the British Empire
By Afshin Molavi When Great Britain was an empire in the early twentieth century, its territory was so vast that it was often said that “the sun never sets on the British empire.” Even after it gave up its last vestige of empire when Britain quit India in 1948, the soggy island nation remained a world power. As the United States and other large economies surpassed Great Britain in the aftermath of World War II, Britain remained a political and cultural force on the world stage.