Even at the pinnacle of the British Empire, when Britain ruled a quarter of the world's landmass and commanded the seas, it was the heroic defeats that were honored in popular memory. The stories live on even today: Gen. Charles Gordon, making his heroic last stand at Khartoum; the slaughter at Isandlwana; the brave redcoats of innumerable Victorian paintings, fighting to the last man against hopeless and desperate odds. The result is a curious act of historical alchemy, transmuting one of the most formidable empires of global history into the myth of Little Britain.

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