In Defence of Colonialism

Nigel Biggar’s fairly voluminous book is an unabashed defence of British colonialism. This is the work of a scholar who as Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford has been concerned throughout his academic career with ethical questions. Yet, it would seem that the wrongs of colonialism have not disturbed him. The ‘moral assessment’ of empire offered by him is that on the whole it was a good thing. ‘We British,’ he says in his introductory remarks, ‘have reason to feel pride as well as shame about our imperial past’ (p. 1, p. 7). However, as the book progresses the reader is unable to locate any sense of shame or remorse about that past. What Biggar has done is to pick up some aspects of the history of the British Empire on which there are writings that seek to dispute a particular point in critiques of colonialism, often taking the narrowest view of a complex historical phenomenon, to build his arguments in defence of British colonialism.