Legacies of the British Empire: Alan Lester

I had the opportunity to attend two events featuring Dr. Alan Lester (University of Sussex).

The first, a talk titled The British Empire and the Culture War: When Colonial History Becomes Politics, which covered much the same ground of a similarly titled article explored the overlap between pro-imperial interpretations of History that are used for political purposes. After the event, I was part of a conversation with Dr. Lester after the event highlighted the current interplay between Canadian and British cultural and media landscapes, as well as coordinated trans-Atlantic anti-intellectual networks that promote hate and deceit.

The second event was the Canadian launch of Lester’s new edited collection The Truth About Empire: Real Histories of British Colonialism, which is part of a larger ongoing dialogue about the legacies of British Imperial history. The conversation featured discussion about historian’s motivations to challenge cherry picked evidence that supports flawed and overly simple interpretations of the past which are often harnessed to galvanize political support for a particular view of the world. When I asked Dr. Lester about the changing nature of the Historian profession, and what, in his view, could be done to more prominently distinguish rigorous scholarship, he said that: “Historians need to not worry so much about arguing the finer points, we need to move quickly and get out in the popular consciousness to confront bad scholarships and poor interpretations of history”.

Lester’s determination to publicly provide scholarly guidance to discussions of the Culture War should be the aspiration of all academics.

I later realized that Lester also edited a collection I’ve been trying to acquire, titled Indigenous Communities and Settler Colonialism: Land Holding, Loss and Survival in an Interconnected World.