The British Empire's Legacy

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.9K Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 1998

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Britain's colonial legacy. The 18th, 19th and early part of the 20th centuries were times of colonial conquest for this country but the abiding image of empire (true or not) is stuck squarely in the 1850’s when Victoria was on the throne and the world map was liberally sprinkled with red. So what does that mean for us as we go into the next millennium - Catherine Hall, Professor of Modern British Social History at University College London, asks us to 're-remember' our colonial past, and suggests that only by acknowledging the guilt it has saddled us with and its legacy of a truly multi-cultural Britain can we face our new life in Europe.Are there different ways of remembering that past, and what effect do these different approaches have on our present? Are we still too close to our imperial past to view it objectively, or is the reverse true - that we are too deeply rooted in our present to learn the lessons of that past? With Catherine Hall, Professor Modern British Social and Cultural History, University College, London; Professor Linda Colley, currently holder of the Leverhulme Research Professorship at the London School of Economics and former Professor of History, Yale University.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for downloading the in-artime podcast. For more details about in-artime and for our terms of use
0:05.4	Please go to bbc.co.uk forward slash radio for. I hope you enjoy the program
0:12.1	Hello today. I'm joined by two historians to discuss Britain's colonial legacy as we approach the end of the century
0:18.2	How much do I identify ourselves by reference to our colonial past?
0:21.4	Are the different ways of remembering that past and what effect do these different approaches have on us today?
0:26.1	I was still too close to our imperial past to view it objectively
0:30.8	Catherine Hall is professor of modern British social and cultural history at University College London
0:35.7	And she just give an lecture on empire and us drawing on her extensive work on nation and empire
0:41.1	She was previously a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex and her books include white male and middle class
0:48.2	explorations in feminism and history and for the last few years her work is concentrated on
0:52.3	rethinking the relation between Britain and empire in the mid-19th century
0:56.9	Linda Colley is currently the holder of the Leaver Hume Research Professorship at the London School of Economics
1:02.6	Previously after teaching at Cambridge, she moved to Yale University as professor of history
1:06.9	Her books include in defiance of oligarchy the Tory Party from 1714 to 1760 and
1:12.5	Britain's forging the nation 1707 to 1837 for which she won the Wolfson Prize
1:18.3	She's currently working on her book about captives and renegades or what she calls the other side of empire
1:24.1	Catherine Hall and quoting from the lecture you say as an historian in 1998
1:29.1	I want to suggest that unless the legacy of the British Empire is re-remembered
1:33.3	It will continue to disrupt and unsettle our present in ways that obstruct the development of a new kind of nation
1:40.1	Let's let's look at that. How do you think it is disrupting and unsettling our present?
1:45.3	Well, I think the legacy is everywhere and the question is the ways in which we think about it
1:50.7	I mean just to reflect for a minute on its presence
	...

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