Map Painted Red

In May 1497 a small ship called the Matthew slipped out of Bristol harbour with a Genoese navigator aboard and a royal patent to find new lands. Five centuries later, on a rain-soaked Hong Kong night in 1997, the Royal Yacht Britannia carried the last governor away and the flag came down on the empire on which the sun never set.Here is the whole vast, contradictory story: the sea dogs and the suga...