 almost two decades at that point back in twenty eighteen when i started writing this and i thought you know i i know the narrative of the british empire in the modern period and i wanted to be able to write to offer just a narrative history of the british empire because i felt it came organically out of my teaching and the lectures that i give and i've been working on assembling that you know for so long so that was one goal but the other kind of probably more important intellectual goal for me