And the F.N. Hello, welcome to Navara FM. I'm Eleanor Penny. How did the British Empire change the world as we know it. How does it still impact foreign policy,

the education sector, the charity sector, environmentalism, health care, and beyond.

According to writer, journalist, and broadcaster

Saturnam Sangera, the empire that once ruled

over a quarter of the and a feature writer for the Times and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

He presented the Channel 4 documentary series Empire State of Mind.

In 2021 he published Empire Land, which chronicles the impact of Empire and Imperial

thinking in British society today. It attracted some vitriol from the right for its

insufficient praise of or even gratitude for what some people in British public life still want to claim as the

glories of the British Empire. It also attracted some criticism from the left for what some,

myself admittedly included included saw as an overly

even-handed approach to an uncomplicatedly negative history of exploitation.

This month he's back with a follow-up titled Empire World. This book expands its

viewpoint to take in the global sweep of the British Empire and how it reshaped

the land we walk on, the climate we live in, the clothes we wear, and of course, the tea we drink.

Sathnam's account chronicles the monstrosities of imperial rule that we have still not

faced up to, and also claims that it should be

given some credit for the spread of democracy to certain parts of the world.

Ultimately he says that both the left and the right have an oversimplified view of our shared history.

I wanted to ask him about how we count the cost of historical disasters, what balance looks

like and when moral simplicity might be warranted.

I wanted to know more about how a quote unquote complex view of empire plays out in British public life. We delved into his historical research into quinine, rubber and rum, into the sugar plantations of Barbados and the seed libraries at Kew Gardens.

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