The British Empire

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Pod Matthew Parker WL

Imperial spectacle: inside Britain’s 1924 ‘Empire Exhibition’ . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Police face rioters during anti-British protests in Cairo, January 1952. Though Britain likes to believe that the decolonisation process across its empire was ‘clean’, it was in fact very violent, says Charlotte Lydia Riley. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Interview Charlotte Lydia Riley: “We need to get rid of the idea that Britain was humanitarian in its imperialism. That needs to go” . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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The 1924 British Empire Exhibition showcased industry close to home, as well as in the far-flung reaches of the empire. Here, Belfast ropeworkers show off the fruits of their labour. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

The British empire’s last hurrah? Why an epic celebration of imperialism in 1924 failed to mask a superpower in decline . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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King George V crosses a river in Nepal, 1912. “Historians have moved the discussion on empire in all sorts of directions over many years,” says Bronwen Everill. (Photo by Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)

The challenge of writing histories of the British empire . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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HEX_Voices_Michael Wood

Michael Wood on crafting a national narrative “We need a meaningful story for the new generation – our composite union” . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Chinese workers tend a tea plantation in a mid-19th-century lithograph. Importing leaves from China was expensive – until Scottish botanist Robert Fortune introduced the plants to India. (Photo by Getty Images)

Eastern promises: the long and troubled history of Britain’s relations with China . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Vod Sathnam Sanghera EmpireWorld WL

Video podcast The British empire’s divisive legacy . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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British author Sathnam Sanghera poses for a photograph in Hampstead

Sathnam Sanghera on the legacy of empire . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Pod Sathnam Sanghera Empireworld WL

The British empire’s divisive legacy . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Vod Jane Ohlmeyer WL

Video podcast Ireland’s tangled relationship with empire . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An Indian soldier keeps watch in a British trench, c1916

The British empire in 1923: the story of the imperial project’s territorial height

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Pod Matthew Parker WL

One day in the British empire . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Pod David Veevers WL

Battling the British empire . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Portrayal of the Charge of the Light Brigade

The Charge of the Light Brigade Who blundered in the Valley of Death?

Captives being brought on board a slave ship on the West Coast of Africa (Slave Coast), c1880. Although Britain outlawed slavery in 1833 and it was abolished in the USA after the defeat of the Confederacy in the Civil War in 1865, the transatlantic trade in African slaves continued. The main market for the slaves was Brazil, where slavery was not abolished until 1888. (Colorised black and white print). Artist Unknown.. (Photo by The Print Collector/Getty Images)

General History

Black British history Slavery's painful legacy