Was the British empire racist?

A discussion with Professor Nigel Biggar about his new book

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I don’t know about you but I’m increasingly frustrated at our apparent inability to talk about British history in a reasonable, mature and measured way. From Harry and Meghan’s Netflix documentary to shows on the BBC, we increasingly seem unable to have a nuanced discussion about our past, including the legacy of empire.

It’s for this reason that I invited Professor Nigel Biggar onto the podcast this week. Nigel is Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford and Director of the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics and Public Life.

He’s also the author of the new book Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, which, as he tells us, was only published after a very long battle with publishers. It’s quite the story. In the podcast, we talk about that battle, what is going wrong in the universities, what Nigel thinks people get wrong about Britain’s empire and why he thinks we need to change the direction of our debate. I really enjoyed talking with him.

Here’s a short preview for our free subscribers while the full hour-long discussion is available right now, below, for our active supporters. Before clicking on the full podcast below we’d like to take the opportunity to thank you for your support.