he Galactic Empire was a bad thing.
You may think this is an obvious statement. After all, we know that Palpatine reorganized the Republic into the Empire after a war in which he manipulated both sides, ravaged whole planets, enslaved whole populations, and destroyed the Jedi Order. He built numerous super weapons designed to ensure its citizens were too fearful to speak out against their oppression. We know this already. We would know this even if we had only seen the movies. We have read countless books and comics that have reinforced this fact over the years.
The Rise And Fall Of The Galactic Empire is Dr. Chris Kempshall's new book. You may know him from his previous books, the nonfiction academic text The History and Politics of Star Wars: Death Stars and Democracy, and as one of the authors behind Star Wars: Battles That Changed The Galaxy. Whatever your opinion of the Galactic Empire, it is unlikely to be good. After reading this book, I guarantee it will be a whole lot worse.
A Historian’s Perspective
This book is Kempshall's first sole credited Star Wars book, but it isn’t a novel. Rise And Fall is more akin to Skywalker: A Family At War by Kristin Baver in that it adopts an in-universe perspective. However, while Baver's book acts as a collection of records, messages, and memories without a "narrator," Kempshall's work covers its subject as an academic text by in-universe historian Beaumont Kin (as played by Dominic Monaghan in The Rise Of Skywalker). Kin is a historian who has lived through the events leading up to the defeat of Palpatine at Exogol, a historian who has lived through the horrors of war, and a historian with opinions.
Those opinions are never made clearer than in the introduction. It soon becomes very clear that Chris (himself a World War I historian) has a message and is not shy about delivering it. It’s also evident that while this book is about fictional events in that fictional Star Wars galaxy that we love, it is also absolutely not about Star Wars. It is about the here and the now, the perils our modern world faces, our mistakes, and the danger of complacency.
The introduction is more than just set-up and exposition; it is a statement. It puts us firmly into Beaumont's head. His work isn’t a balanced assessment of the Galactic Empire; there are not “good guys on both sides.” It’s one of the most powerful few pages of any Star Wars book I’ve read in the last 40 years.
Plot
Characters
Originality
Writing
Entertainment
The Long Arc of Star Wars History
The book's main content is divided into four parts, each divided into chapters on a particular aspect. Part 1 shows how Palpatine became Emperor and brought the Empire into being. Part 2 details its growth across the galaxy. Part 3 covers the Galactic Civil War between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance, while part 4 tells us how the Empire was eventually defeated, both at Endor and then, years later, at Exogol.
This book covers approximately 60 years of in-universe history. Chris doesn’t just give summaries of events but also analyzes numerous other factors that allowed the Empire to exist, discusses how certain things could even happen, and highlights repercussions that you may not have considered before.
One of the earlier sections in the book that really gave me pause (so much so that I had to stop reading and truly process what I had just read) discusses precisely why the Imperial Senate was allowed to exist for as long as it did and delivers a fascinating answer to a question I can’t honestly say I’d ever thought to ask.
A Larger View of the Star Wars Story
With ten years of Canon storytelling behind us, Chris takes full advantage, exploring events we’ve seen in other mediums and embellishing and expanding on them in detail. One of my favorite examples of this is Chris, taking the Imperial subjugation of the Salient system from Catalyst: A Rogue One by James Luceno and elaborating upon it in a way that's terrifying but makes perfect sense in conjunction with everything else we learn about the Empire.
We get references to books for all age groups, comics, TV shows, video games, and more. If you’ve got a favorite battle from the Reign Of The Empire era, there’s a good chance Beaumont talks about it, and either gives new details or provides a viewpoint you may not have considered before.
This book also contains a lot of brand-new information, such as Moff Iraydion’s economic warfare on the planet Beldreone, the idea that certain societies engaged in Clone Wars “reenactments,” and the New Republic's capture of Kuat. I’m sure that in the months and years to come, it will become obvious that some of these events came from stories currently in the pipeline.
As well as the deep cuts, we also get a not insignificant amount of Legends reintroduced to Canon, from Yinchorr being the home of the Imperial Guard training ground to the ambush at Derra IV, and my personal favorite: Pollux Hax, from The Illustrated Guide To The Star Wars Universe by Kevin J. Anderson. I’m sure Chris even references his own Guild from Star Wars: Galaxies.
Style and Voice
None of this is done superfluously, and while some of the ‘tuckerisms’ pulled me out briefly, Chris is doing a lot more than showing off his Star Wars knowledge. Everything is there to serve a purpose or illustrate a point. Someone who hasn’t read the other works will not feel as though they are missing the necessary background information.
The book also does a great job of bridging the gap between the Battle Of Jakku and the events of the sequel trilogy, and a New Republic that was in power for longer than the Empire it is discussing. It also deftly acknowledges that stories are still being told in this era. That point goes some way in addressing one of the criticisms leveled at the overall arc of the sequel trilogy, that the galaxy hadn’t changed in 30 years. It also illustrates the challenges the New Republic faced in rebuilding out of the shadow of the Empire.
Unsurprisingly, Chris’s writing style is academic. It is more in line with authors such as Alexander Freed and James Luceno than the arguably more accessible style of Charles Soule or Delilah Dawson. Still, the prose is clear and written in such a way that I never lost track of the technical aspects of the socio-political observations being discussed.
Having interviewed Chris a couple of times, I sometimes struggled to separate Beaumont from the author. It was easy for me to forget I was reading an in-universe book. However, in fairness, there isn’t much original Beaumont content, and certainly not enough for a writer to convincingly adopt the character’s tone. The book also includes numerous footnotes, as the text refers to other fictional works (not to be confused with existing works of fiction). These are often quite basic, but there are some fascinating easter eggs. In other cases, I found myself wishing that the fictional work existed so I could read it!
Our Verdict
In case it hasn’t been clear, I loved this book. I think it’s a bold, ambitious masterpiece. I also recognize that it absolutely won’t be for everyone. It is not a light read or thrilling page-turner, but it is serious, thought-provoking, and, I think, important. It could be the most important Star Wars book of a generation.
