Category: Colonialism and ‘Decolonisation’
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Report on Britain, Slavery and Anti-Slavery
Briefings for Britain published Nigel Biggar’s report on slavery, which was distributed to all Members of Parliament, among others. Details of this report can be found at the Briefings for Britain website, here. Biggar’s full report, “Britain, Slavery, and Anti-Slavery”, is available for download as a pdf. Alternatively, one can read the report online.
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Britain, Slavery and the Problem with ‘Decolonisation’
Nigel Biggar has published two essays that bring to a reader’s attention a history of slavery and the British response that calls into question the narratives of racial discord and need for reparations that decolonisation movements (i.e., Rhodes Must Fall and Black Lives Matter) proffer. Biggar outlines a vast history of slavery while highlighting anti-slavery movements, which too…
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Should We Be Ashamed of Our History?
Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) host the YouTube show and podcast TRIGGERnometry, which explores issues that are both important and controversial. In their 30 August 2020 episode, the hosts welcome Nigel Biggar to discuss the topic of history and whether one should be ashamed? The conversation begins, in part, with the…
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On Human Rights and Empire: An Interview
Journalist and contributing editor at ConservativeHome, Andrew Gimson, interviewed Nigel Biggar for the Conservative blog site. The interview highlights, in part, Biggar’s reflections on the limits of human rights and the need for the virtues as well as his analysis of imperial history and British empire. You can read the interview in full on the ConservativeHome blog here: “Interview:…
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Why Shouldn’t the Curriculum be ‘Eurocentric’?
UnHerd Opinion: Nigel Biggar challenges those lobbying for the ‘decolonising’ of university curricula. While many in educational and cultural institutions are yielding, Biggar, drawing upon both statistical data and critical acumen, argues that the case in favour makes neither empirical nor historical sense. Read Biggar’s opinion here.
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Questions that Need Satisfactory Answers
On 10 February 2020, The Telegraph published Nigel Biggar’s reflections on the ‘decolonising’ proposal, which would have ‘Western museums surrender objects taken by European imperialists centuries ago.’ For Biggar, such a proposal raises a number of questions that require satisfactory response. The article, “Let’s stop this descent into self-pitying Empire shame over our universities’ ancient artefacts”, can be found…
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Phenomenon vs. Icon
July 2019 saw the publication of “Biggar vs Little Britain: God, War, Union, Brexit and Empire in Twenty-First Century Conservative Ideology,” by Richard Drayton, Rhodes Professor of Imperial History at King’s College London. In his essay Drayton mounts an attack on what he calls “the Biggar phenomenon”. While Drayton’s essay can be found in Stuart Ward and Astrid Rasch’s…
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The Empire Wasn’t All Bad
Jeppe Matzen recently interviewed Nigel Biggar for the Danish periodical Weekendavisen. The interview, “Imperiet var ikke kun slemt [The Empire was not only bad]”, was published 19 July 2019. The original article can be read here.
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Correcting Inaccuracies: Ethics and Empire
On 26 September 2018 the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published an article by Paul Ostwald, “Wie günstig! Da kommen plötzlich drei Kriege mehr aus”, which was highly critical of the “Ethics and Empire” project, which Nigel Biggar runs in the McDonald Centre. You can find the article here. Mr Ostwald’s article contained a series of inaccuracies. Professor Biggar therefore wrote a…