That's sort of exactly what I was talking about. The author, who obviously knows the material, starts off by saying the British Empire (note the capitalization) was the "... largest formal empire that the world had ever known." He does not address the question of what constitutes an empire; a curious omission given his use of the word "formal."
Look, I know this is picking nits, but if we're going to tag WWI (trying desperately to tie back to the thread subject) or any other event as key in the "decline and fall of the British Empire" we ought to be able to identify what constitutes an empire. As that article noted, the Colonial Office was not dissolved until 1966. One could argue that the Colonial Office (as early as 1854) marks the creation of a formal empire even more than does Queen Victoria taking on the title in 1877.
Like everyone else, I'm accustomed to referring to the British Empire as if it were a thing. The more I consider this thread, though, the more the phrase feels like a metaphor than a reality, exactly in the way people speak of the Athenian Empire or indeed the American Empire. It's a metaphor for widespread influence, usually with a hint of paternalism at best and exploitation at worst. And, of course, a metaphor is utterly indifferent to the methods of historians.
