Britain’s Contested History
by Bernard Porter
Bloomsbury £20

HISTORY is a central front in the “culture wars” supposedly roiling British politics. Indeed, it may be the central front, other than the issue of trans rights.
 
The empire and its reverberations, who should and shouldn’t be on statues, what should be taught about the past in schools – the politician, particularly the Tory politician, who doesn’t have a sharp soundbite ready on these questions will have a cloudy future.

That is not surprising. Control the past and you have a fair shot at controlling the future too. You can set the parameters of the expected and the acceptable, framed by a common understanding of who “we” are and what “we” do.   

For example, a book published a few years ago argued that Britain was more or less unique in never having had a revolution. This observation, entirely inaccurate, would, if accepted, appear to preclude having any sort of revolution in the future.
 
Today, there is nothing Tories like less than being reminded of Britain’s record in the slave trade, in colonial violence and exploitation, all of it resting on racism.