Nigel Biggar tries—and fails—to rehabilitate the British Empire
“Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning” relies on hoary arguments and selective evidence
For a professor of theology, Nigel Biggar has a sharp appetite for controversy. One of his previous books defended the concept of the “just war”. In 2017 he set up a research project on “Ethics and Empire” at the University of Oxford. He was denounced for suggesting that it might be intellectually credible to re-evaluate the morals of the British Empire. To his critics, this did not sound like serious history. His latest book is an effort to set them straight.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “The sun never sets”
Culture March 4th 2023
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