The Sun Didn’t Set . . .

Prof. Arthur Campbell Turner’s review of Brian Lapping’s “End of Empire” (Book Review, Dec. 8) ends on a false note, one that does less than justice to some deserving people--the postwar British.

However dramatic and satisfying it may be to talk about the “decline and fall” of the British Empire, the fact is that it didn’t decline and it didn’t fall: It was given back to its several rightful owners before it could do either.

Show me another nation that in world history to date has made a comparable gesture.

ALAN GRIFFITHS

Los Angeles