Q&A The Queen’s Death and Competing Narratives of Empire

Does the U.K. focus too much on its imperial past, or not enough?

Nesrine Malik of the Guardian and I were taking different positions on the pertinence of empire to very recent British history. I was challenging the practice of merely asserting the significance of empire and suggested that this obscured many of the most important features of contemporary politics. We are in conversation with Isaac Chotiner, New Yorker 21 September 2022. See also my Guardian article on this theme posted below.