Along the way, Winchester pauses every third paragraph or so to delve into some topic that is not, at first glance, relevant to his story: Lloyd's of London, for instance, or the Reuters news agency, or Dutch colonial policy in Java, or the biological theories of Alfred Russel Wallace.

FORBES: Don't Go Near The Volcano

He suggested Canada would be outsourcing its foreign policy to the former colonial power.

ECONOMIST: Cutting costs and reviving the past