Empire of Rules
MP and historian Kwasi Kwarteng on the legacy of Empire.
MP and historian Kwasi Kwarteng claims the British Empire is all around us today and in this series he sets out to look for it in the UK鈥檚 monuments, people - and in its contested memories.
Oxford is Kwasi鈥檚 destination for 鈥楨mpire of Rules鈥�. If Empire had a cultural heart, Oxford has as good a claim as any to the title, he believes. He looks at how the university educated generations of colonial administrators who went on to run and shape whole countries. This was the university of arch-imperialist Cecil Rhodes. Oxford, he says, also provided much of the intellectual underpinning of the imperial project, developing influential ideas and disciplines, such as 鈥榗ultural anthropology鈥�. But Kwasi discovers that some students and academics, especially from outside the UK, think Oxford still has a colonialist image. He investigates what鈥檚 being done to address those concerns.
Producer Gareth Jones for 麻豆社 Wales
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Kwasi Kwarteng looks through Cecil Rhodes's letters
Duration: 02:13
Kwasi Kwarteng spoke with archivist Lucy McCann at Oxford's Bodleian Library
For 'Living with the Empire' Kwasi, with help from archivist Lucy McCann, spent an afternoon reading some of Cecil Rhodes's letters kept in Oxford's Bodleian Library. As a young man Rhodes was dividing his time between reading for a degree at Oxford and diamond prospecting in South Africa. He went on to become one of the world's richest men and he founded the Rhodes Scholarships which today help postgraduate students from all over the world to study in Oxford. However, the scholarships were originally restricted to certain applicants, reflecting Rhodes's belief in Anglo-Saxon supremacy. His early letters confirm that the arch-imperialist was developing his racialist theories soon after his first visits to South Africa.聽
Broadcasts
- Mon 22 Oct 2018 20:00麻豆社 Radio 4
- Wed 24 Oct 2018 11:00麻豆社 Radio 4