Description

The Sunday Times Bestseller

A new assessment of the Wests colonial record

In the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet empire in 1989 many believed that we had arrived at the End of History that the global dominance of liberal democracy had been secured forever
Now however with Russia rattling its sabre on the borders of Europe and China rising to challenge the post1945 world order the liberal West faces major threats
These threats are not only external Especially in the Anglosphere the decolonisation movement corrodes the Wests selfconfidence by retelling the history of European and American colonial dominance as a litany of racism exploitation and massively murderous violence
Nigel Biggar tests this indictment addressing the crucial questions in eight chapters Was the British Empire driven primarily by greed and the lust to dominate Should we speak of colonialism and slavery in the same breath as if they were identical Was the Empire essentially racist How far was it based on the theft of land Did it involve genocide Was it driven fundamentally by the motive of economic exploitation Was undemocratic colonial government necessarily illegitimate and Was the Empire essentially violent and its violence pervasively racist and terroristic
Biggar makes clear that like any other longstanding state the British Empire involved elements of injustice sometimes appalling On occasions it was culpably incompetent and presided over moments of dreadful tragedy
Nevertheless from the early 1800s the Empire was committed to abolishing the slave trade in the name of a Christian conviction of the basic equality of all human beings It ended endemic intertribal warfare opened local economies to the opportunities of global trade moderated the impact of inescapable modernisation established the rule of law and liberal institutions such as a free press and spent itself in defeating the murderously racist Nazi and Japanese empires in the Second World War
As encyclopaedic in historical breadth as it is penetrating in analytical depth Colonialism offers a moral inquest into the colonial past forensically contesting damaging falsehoods and thereby helping to rejuvenate faith in the Wests future