Histories of imperialism, especially the European imperialism of the 19th and 20th centuries, were long dominated by purportedly neutral accounts that sanitized the often bloody practice. More ...

Hating the British Empire is nothing new. Indeed, it has been the primary occupation of the academy since about 1960. Not without exceptions, of course. The prolific Jeremy Black’s Imperial Legacies ...

It is just as well that Professor Caroline Elkins, at the start of this hefty book, uses the indefinite article when she writes that she is presenting her readers with “a history” of the British ...

In many ways, I think of the past as a setting, as a prologue. The past sets the stage for the beginning of our story. But it doesn’t necessarily set the stage for the end of it. And so when we think ...

The violent Mau Mau revolt in 1950s Kenya against British colonial rule was viewed in the West as a "savage" rejection of "civilization." Now two outstanding histories place the Mau Mau in historical ...

Elkins, Caroline M. "Ndiku Mutua and 4 Others and Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Claim No. HQ09X02666: Witness Statement of Caroline Macy Elkins." Government Testimony, Royal Courts of Justice, ...