Students aren’t being told the truth about the British Empire

The debate over how we teach the British Empire has become one of the most polarising arguments in modern British education. Some insist the empire was a force for progress – ushering in parliamentary institutions, the rule of law, global trade and modernity. Others emphasise its violence, exploitation and the long shadow it casts over current-day inequalities.

What is striking is not that these views exist, but that arguments about empire increasingly sit within wider disputes about national identity, race, belonging and how Britain understands its past. We ask students to understand one of the most complex forces in world history, yet we are too often urged to present it as a single story.

This is why Parallel Histories, where I am the CEO, is launching a new eBook series on the British Empire. We believe that contested history should be taught as contested. The empire is not a morality tale with a single lesson – it is a vast, contradictory and deeply human story. To teach it responsibly, we must teach it from both perspectives – its architects and its subjects, those exercising power and those living under imperial rule, its beneficiaries and its victims, its triumphs and its traumas. These are competing claims that must be tested against evidence. The task is not to weigh benefits against harms, but to test competing claims about how empire was justified, how it was experienced and how it should be understood today.

The British Empire was never one thing. It was a global system that spanned continents and centuries, shaped by millions of people with competing motives and experiences. To reduce it to either a celebration or an indictment is to flatten the past into propaganda. Students deserve better.

From the imperialist British perspective, the empire was often justified as a civilising mission, a commercial enterprise or a strategic necessity. Many believed they were spreading law, order and modernity. Some saw it as a source of national pride and global influence.

From the perspective of the colonised, the empire could mean dispossession, racial hierarchy, economic exploitation and cultural suppression. It could also mean collaboration, adaptation, resistance and the forging of new identities under pressure.

When students encounter these perspectives side by side, something powerful happens – they begin to think critically. They learn that history is not a set of answers, but a set of arguments. They learn to weigh evidence, question assumptions and recognise bias – including their own. They learn that people in the past, like people today, acted from mixed motives and lived with unintended consequences. They test claims against evidence, look at sources, draw inferences and confront contradictions between different interpretations.

The current debate about the empire often collapses into a tug-of-war between nostalgia and condemnation. But the real problem is not about which side wins – it is that students are rarely shown that there are other sides at all.

When we teach only the positive story, we risk producing students who cannot understand why the empire remains a source of pain and anger in many parts of the world. When we teach only the negative story, we risk producing students who cannot understand why the empire was supported by so many at home and abroad, or why its legacy is still defended today.

In both cases, we produce citizens who are poorly equipped to navigate the complexities of modern Britain – a country whose multicultural fabric, global relationships and political debates are all shaped by imperial history, and shaped by the decisions we the British took after the end of empire. A single story creates fragility. Parallel stories create intellectual resilience.

Our approach is simple but transformative: we present students with competing historical narratives, each grounded in primary sources, and ask them to interrogate both. We do not tell them what to think. We teach them how to think. Students investigate the evidence from one perspective and argue from that position, and then switch to do the same from the alternative contested perspective. The strength of this process is that it requires students to weigh evidence and test conclusions.

In our British Empire programme, students encounter British politicians defending imperial expansion as a moral duty alongside Indian nationalists describing the economic devastation of colonial rule. They read about African leaders negotiating between collaboration and resistance, and Caribbean voices reflecting on slavery, emancipation and identity. British soldiers, missionaries, merchants and administrators explaining their motives in their own words, alongside anti-colonial thinkers articulating visions of freedom and self-determination.

Students then analyse and debate from these perspectives – not to endorse them, but to understand them. They learn that history is constructed, contested and alive. This method does not dilute the truth – it deepens it. It does not avoid controversy – it equips students to handle it. It does not impose a narrative as much as it empowers students to build one.

We live in a moment when public discourse is increasingly polarised, when social media rewards outrage over understanding and when young people are bombarded with simplified narratives about complex issues. Teaching contested history through parallel perspectives is not just an academic exercise – it is a democratic necessity.

When historical judgements become markers of political or cultural allegiance, enquiry becomes harder. Parallel Histories separates scrutiny from allegiance: students argue from one interpretation, switch to the competing interpretation and then reach their own judgement.

If students cannot grapple with the contradictions of the past, how will they grapple with the contradictions of the present? If they cannot understand why people disagree about history, how will they understand why people disagree about politics, identity, or justice today?

The British Empire is not just a chapter in a textbook. It is a living force in our national story. To teach it honestly, we must teach it in full. The question is not whether the British Empire was good or bad. The question is whether we trust students enough to let them decide for themselves.