colonial history
What has the reparations movement ever done for victims of modern slavery?
Until now it has focused on extracting trillions from European governments in compensation for historic crimes while ignoring horrors still being perpetrated today
The complexities of our colonial legacy
Weighing the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ effects of British imperialism is a futile exercise, says Sathnam Sanghera. But he comes perilously close to doing just that
A shameful betrayal
Philippe Sands’s compelling new book opens in 2018 at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where Liseby Elysé…
A long, dark shadow
When the 13 colonies of the United States declared independence in 1776, the first country to recognise the new nation…
Plunder from the palace
A book about the looted African art known as the Benin Bronzes begins by clarifying that most of them are…
Of human bondage
Wrestling with the history of the British Empire is the unfinished and unfinishable project of our history. Time’s Monster takes…
From slave to freedom fighter
Toussaint Louverture’s ‘crazy dream’ for Haiti has still to be realised, says Amy Wilentz
They weren’t all shooting up or shooting each other
Rift Valley, Kenya The other day when I told the headmaster of a top British public school that I came…
