With statues at the heart of the culture war over empire and with retain & explain as government policy, it’s important to explain them fully and sensitively. This has been tried in the case of the Redvers Buller statue in Exeter. A blog here on his career and its interpretation. Philip Halling / Statue of General Sir Redvers Buller / CC BY-SA 2.0
I hope to be able to run this summer school again next year now that places have sold out for 2023.
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History has recently published my Extended Critique of Nigel Biggar’s book Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning. Prof. Biggar’s Reply was published alongside it. Like his history of colonialism, Biggar’s reply has unorthodox features, some of…
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03086534.2023.2209947
https://www.economist.com/culture/2023/05/26/what-the-crown-jewels-reveal-about-britains-colonial-past “Modern attitudes towards the legacy of colonialism are shifting. Younger Britons are more sceptical than their parents about their country’s role in world history. And as historians scrutinise sources from former colonies, hard truths about Britain’s historical empire are emerging. People are eager to know more. Community groups who were consulted during research for the exhibition said they wanted to learn about the Koh-i-Noor and Cullinan diamonds, explains Mr Farris. In a similar vein, many Western museums are becoming increasingly transparent about contested objects in their collections. Yet even this retain and explain policy can meet resistance. Professor Lester […]
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vPKWgZLYhBI&ab_channel=WarStudiesKCL
https://www.sunpub.info/deny-and-disavow
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/events/history-as-battleground-the-weaponisation-of-empire-in-contemporary-british-culture-wars-with-prof.-alan-lester
Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning has been very positively reviewed in certain right-wing oriented publications and is a best-seller. Those who take pride in the British Empire see it as a key resource with which to defend its record. Here is my review (click here), written from the perspective of someone who has researched that empire for decades.
