BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Living with the Empire

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MP and historian Kwasi Kwarteng on the legacy of Empire.

MP and historian Kwasi Kwarteng sets out to look for the British Empire in the UK's monuments, people - and in its contested memories.

Living with the Empire: Empire of Rules

Empire of Rules

BBC Radio 4 - Living with the Empire, Empire of Rules

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’s monuments, people - and in its contested memories.   

Oxford is Kwasi’s destination for ‘Empire of Rules’. 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 ‘cultural anthropology’. But Kwasi discovers that some students and academics, especially from outside the UK, think Oxford still has a colonialist image. He investigates what’s being done to address those concerns.  

Producer Gareth Jones for BBC Wales

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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Living with the Empire

Empire of Rules

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