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Hello, this week on In Our Time we're discussing Captivity and Empire, which brings in Slavery

and Empire, two of the themes that run through this country's imperial history. Britain's

imperial project played a major part in the last 250 years of our national life and we've had

a hangover ever since. Its advocates claim it was a civilising mission by which Britain's

spread enlightenment and improvement across the globe. Opponents have long seen it as a brutal

business, with Britain's castors, cruel oppressors who set out to exploit a conquered world.

But our imperial history isn't so simple. What happened for instance when Britain's themselves

were captives of empire, either as prisoners of an imperial enterprise that sucked them in,

generation after generation, or in some cases as slaves themselves to foreign people.

And is slavery an inevitable part of empire? Does it come with a territory?

And how did Britain finally shake it off and encourage the rest to follow?

What we need to discuss and rummage around the subject from an original starting point is

Linda Colley, school professor of history at the LSE, and author of a new book, Captives,

Britain, Empire and the world, 161850. Catherine Hall, professor of modern British

social history and cultural history at University College London, and author of civilising subjects,

1830 to 1867. And Philippe Fernandez-Armesto, professor or your research fellow at Queen

Mary College London, and author of civilisations from the Ice Age to the 20th century.

Linda, who are the captives in your title?

There were hundreds and thousands of people. I think partly because our view of the British Empire

is over-determined by the Victorian period when we really were the dominant power,

...