Colonialism
What a slippery, hateful toad Fred Goodwin was
Make It Happen is a portrait of a bullying control freak, Fred Goodwin, who turned RBS into the largest bank…
The crimes of Cecil Rhodes were every bit as sinister as those of the Nazis
Through bribery and ruthless exploitation, the unapologetic racist worked to unite Africa under British rule – with consequences that still haunt us today
Freedom fighters of the ‘forgotten continent’
A history of South America’s native heroes includes the Peruvian rebel Tupac Amaro II, the Mapuche of Chile, the escaped slaves of north-eastern Brazil and the ‘great liberator’ Simon Bolivar
And still the colonial memoirs keep coming…
Peter Godwin’s third volume to date – of a family in various stages of decline after leaving their African homeland – is redeemed by its vivid evocations and erudition
Mother of mysteries: Rosarita, by Anita Desai, reviewed
On a break in Mexico, a young Indian woman is regaled with stories of her mother’s past by a total stranger. But is it all a con?
Cold War spying had much in common with the colonial era
Influenced by Kipling’s Kim, early CIA officers combined a love of overseas adventure with a whiff of imperial paranoia, says Hugh Wilford
Beguiling: Yinka Shonibare, at the Serpentine Galleries, reviewed
More than seven centuries ago, the medieval cartographer Richard of Haldingham created Hereford Cathedral’s Mappa Mundi; I say ‘created’ because…
Is the C of E about to say sorry for Christianity?
Is the Church of England going to apologise for Christianity? A report by something called the Oversight Group has declared…
The problem with westerners seeking oriental enlightenment
Those chasing after blissful satori never seem interested in the people who actually live in Asia. They want to float in higher spheres
The greed and the glory
The American author turns her attention to colonial injustice in a tale about a servant girl who flees a blighted English settlement in 17th-century Jamestown
Hanging offences
Calvin Po laments the pious distortions of history at two of Britain’s best-known galleries
The new orthodoxy
The decolonisers in Britain’s universities are not just trying to defend their views. They are seeking to upend the free market in ideas by imposing them, says Doug Stokes
From revolutionary Paris to the moon
Thirlwell’s protagonist Celine flees malicious gossip in revolutionary France to ponder on sisterly solidarity, patriarchal violence, motherhood, colonialism and slavery
Not all Americans are so crass
In the face of American snark about the Queen’s death, many a British newspaper reader was disgusted. With bad tidings…
Voices of the veld
Julia Blackburn’s Dreaming the Karoo is the diary of a very bad year: from March 2020, when a research trip…
The last governor
After 13 years in parliament, rising star Chris Patten had the bad luck to be one of the few Tory…
Travels in time and space
It’s a bold writer who confronts a major historical moment such as a pandemic before it’s over, but Emily St.…
Matter of time
Are children’s history books racist?
Oak, not woke
The National Trust now has the chance to return to its roots
Tony Sewell’s race report critics are guilty of gaslighting
The Sewell Report on Race and Ethnic Disparities is courageous, thoughtful and measured. Its relative optimism has triggered a torrent…
Who volunteers to be lectured by children?
The screenwriter Russell T. Davies has said that only gay actors should be cast in gay parts, believing this leads…
It isn’t always easy to give money away
I always felt sorry for my father, then president of a chronically strapped educational institution, for having ceaselessly to approach…
The Spectator’s Notes
The National Trust has brought out its ‘Interim Report’, with the clumsy title ‘Addressing our histories of colonialism and historic…
Hoping to find happiness: Paris Echo, by Sebastian Faulks, reviewed
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a serious novel must be in want of a theme. Paris Echo soon…
