Empire

Our great art institutions have reduced British history to a scrapheap of shame

12 August 2023 9:00 am

Calvin Po laments the pious distortions of history at two of Britain’s best-known galleries

Homage to Hatshepsut – a remarkable female pharaoh

15 July 2023 9:00 am

Describing the golden age of ancient Egypt, John Romer pays tribute to the chief wife of Thutmose II who proclaimed herself king and ruled successfully for almost 20 years

Gandhi’s killer is more loveable than his victim: The Father and the Assassin reviewed

11 June 2022 9:00 am

Dictating to the Estate is a piece of community theatre that explains why Grenfell Tower went up in flames on…

In praise of Greek royalty

4 June 2022 9:00 am

New York Prince Pavlos, heir to the Greek throne, turned 55 recently and I threw a small dinner for him.…

The folly of American imperialism

11 September 2021 9:00 am

Gstaad Mercedes Benz heir Mick Flick and I have been friends for more than half a century. We both married…

The distortion of British history

20 February 2021 7:00 pm

The British Museum has announced the appointment of a curator to study the history of its own collections. On the…

Labour’s revealing support for reparations

15 February 2021 11:28 pm

The most extreme measure in the entire Labour Party manifesto of 2019 – and this is a high bar –…

The Great War was enough to make grown men weep

7 December 2019 9:00 am

Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo it took a mere six weeks for the diplomats of Europe’s…

Radio 4 treats its radio listeners as second-best in favour of those who listen to podcasts

13 October 2018 9:00 am

How very odd of Radio 4 not only to release The Ratline as a podcast before broadcasting it on the…

Shashi Tharoor’s book is a polemic, says Kapil Komireddi – beware of Hindu nationalism

6 October 2018 9:00 am

Most religions bind their adherents into a community of believers. Hinduism segregates them into castes. And people excluded from the…

The World Cup has made us proud to be English

14 July 2018 9:00 am

Buying fish at Cambridge market on Sunday, I found myself chatting to the fishmonger about the prospects for England in…

What the Windrush scandal reveals about Theresa May

21 April 2018 9:00 am

Everyone speaks about the Windrush. The boat was actually called the Empire Windrush. The full name reveals what the story…

Plywood at its most curvaceous, acceptable and collectible: Alvar Aalto armchair, 1930 (left), and moulded plywood chair by Grete Jalk, 1963

Grain of truth

8 July 2017 9:00 am

We routinely feel emotional about materials — often subliminally. Which is why new substances and techniques for manufacturing have provoked…

Next time I go to India, I want imperialism 2.0

23 January 2016 9:00 am

When in India, I always appal my highly educated tour guides. They despair of me, as they drag me round…

Kandy mountains: buzzing bees and cigarette trees, pretty much

Sri Lanka makes me yearn to be a pre-war tea planter

17 October 2015 9:00 am

James Delingpole tastes bliss in the steamy heat

The eyes have it: Andy Warhol’s gift for second sight was preternatural

What I learned from reshooting the dullest film ever made

15 August 2015 9:00 am

Stephen Smith finally sees the point of Empire, one of the dullest films in cinema history

‘The Discovery of the Large, Rich, Beautiful Empire called Guiana’, from ‘Newe Weld un Americanische Historien’, by Johann Ludwig Gottfried, 1631

The strange history of Willoughbyland, modern-day Suriname

8 August 2015 9:00 am

John Gimlette on the strange and superbly told story of Willoughbyland, England’s ‘lost’ colony

The voices of Indian PoWs captured in the first world war

15 November 2014 9:00 am

At six o’clock on 31 May 1916, an Indian soldier who had been captured on the Western Front alongside British…

In the empire stakes, the Anglo-Saxons were for long Spain’s inferiors

19 July 2014 9:00 am

‘Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned Montezuma and who strangled Atahualpa.’ Macaulay, anticipating Gove, was complaining that the schoolboys by contrast…

Christmas past in Spectator letters

14 December 2013 9:00 am

This is a selection of seasonal letters from The Spectator’s 185-year archive, now online at archive.spectator.co.uk. The emblem to the…

Tristram Hunt's diary: Why has Gove allowed a school that makes women wear the hijab?

19 October 2013 9:00 am

ONE OF THE MINOR sociological treats of being appointed shadow education secretary is a frontbench view of David Cameron’s crimson…