Abstract
Philip Murphy’s book on the Commonwealth, The Empire’s New Clothes, may be reminiscent of what Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s Prime Minister, once said in a 2014 interview about this association, which may not appear very enviable to many. He challenged its very name by calling it ‘a misnomer’. He went on to elaborate that ‘wealth’ is not ‘common’ at all. It belongs to only four members and the rest are poor. So, calling it ‘the Commonwealth’, that is common, when obviously wealth is not common’ is problematic. While Murphy may not be in total agreement with Mahathir’s estimation of the Commonwealth, his own deep skepticism about it would not leave many readers cheering.