Some say Britain should be proud of its imperial past. Oxford academics say it's not so simple.
The single greatest failure of current punditry is the refusal to recognise that context matters. A one-size-fits-all approach to solving Zimbabwe's complex set of problems simply won't help.
Indian forces in North Africa during World War II.
Imperial War Museums © IWM (E 5330)
Letters home reveal what is was like to be an Indian soldier in World War II.
Don’t forget us: the UK’s minster for Africa, Rory Stewart.
FCO via Flickr
The Commonwealth countries' democratic failings take a back seat to British panic about impending irrelevance.
Arthur James Balfour.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema via Wikimedia Commons
With just 67 words, a British foreign secretary kicked off a hundred years of conflict and displacement.
A controversial article in a respected academic journal recently made the argument for colonialism. Here, a man is carried by Congolese men in a photo from the early 20th centiry.
An academic article that asserted the benefits of colonialism caused an outcry and resulted in calls for its removal. A post-colonial expert explains why.
A Rainbow Pride march at Chandannagar, north of Calcutta in early 2017.
Section 377, which criminalises homosexuality, could finally be relegated to the history books.
How will U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis handle America’s “Forever War’?
Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP
Donald Trump's speech on "principled realism" in Afghanistan contained few surprises. Now, under the aegis of DOD chief Mattis it is the latest stage in America’s "forever war."
After well over half a century of Independence, the ghosts of colonialism still haunt India's national psyche.
Luxury in the British Raj: Calcutta’s memorial to Queen Victoria, 1921.
How one member of the Indian Civil Service coped with being a colonial usurper.
By Simpson, William (1823-1899) via Wikimedia Commons
Intellectuals of the time saw the British Empire as the heir to the civilising influence of ancient Rome.
Mahatma Gandhi with Lord and Lady Mountbatten, 1947.
As the British Empire became an unaffordable burden, planning for India's independence quickly ran into trouble.
Market street near the Golden Temple, Amritsar, Punjab. Ben Crowe/ERA Films
Shakespeare’s play offered me a chance to think about India's political and social issues from a literary and epic perspective.
As unity talks begin, history tells us the divisions in Cyprus are not simply the result of two competing nationalisms.
Beijing's plans for Hong Kong aren't going down well with all its post-colonial subjects.
Master Mansions today. From Fourthwall Books’ ‘Master Mansions’ (2017) by Mark Lewis and Tanya Zack.
Mark Lewis/ Fourthwall Books
Apartheid was to officially end in 1994. So was the fashion of wearing hats as the formalities of business, church and leisure gave way to the informality of urban equality.
For almost all of its cumbersome history, the British Empire was a very ramshackle affair.
Australia ingratiating itself into a post-Brexit, British-instigated Anglosphere would be a futile exercise in counterproductive nostalgia.
Theresa May is at the helm of a more global post-Brexit Britain.
The concept of 'the Anglosphere' gained in importance after the Brexit referendum as an alternative to the EU – and it could now impact Anglo nations, like Australia.
For the decolonisation of knowledge to be successful, it must be driven by critical thinking.
Phrases like “knowledge production” conceal the fact that knowledge answers to something beyond itself and beyond us. To produce knowledge is to find out about something.
SeraphP via Shutterstock
Some British people look back fondly to the days of empire. Their views aren't shared by the rest of the world.