Britain’s imperial past is one of the most consequential chapters in world history, yet it remains one of the least understood by the British public. While students routinely learn about the Tudors, the Roman occupation of Britain and the Second World War, the history of the British Empire – which shaped continents, transformed economies and influenced global politics for centuries – often receives only passing attention in classrooms.
That omission has once again become the focus of debate after Green Party deputy leader Zack Polanski reflected on his own education.
“When I studied history at school,” he said. “Tudors, Romans, a bit of WWII. I don’t remember talking about empire or colonisation.”
His comments echo concerns long expressed by historians, who argue that Britain’s imperial story has been marginalised despite its enormous significance.
Among them is historian William Dalrymple, who believes the absence of empire from much of the national curriculum has left generations of Britons with little understanding of how profoundly Britain reshaped the modern world.
Zack Polanski, "When I studied history at school. Tudors, Romans, a bit of WWII. I don't remember talking about empire or colonisation"
— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) June 28, 2026
Historian William Dalrymple, "It is possible to do at A'Levels modules on the British empire, but very few people do them"
"Which means most… pic.twitter.com/hXwWhkwt3w
“It is possible to do at A-Levels modules on the British Empire,” Dalrymple explained, “but very few people do them.”
“Which means most British people are entirely ignorant of what is, for better or worse, the most important thing Britain ever did.”
For Dalrymple, the British Empire cannot simply be viewed as another historical topic among many. It represented a transformation of the world’s political and economic landscape on an unprecedented scale.
“Britain drew its empire, completely changed the face of the world over the course of 300-400 years,” he said.
“Not only did they change it within a local European context, but they completely upended flows of global trade and ecosystems which had existed for millennia.”
He argues that understanding the rise of Britain also requires understanding the economic dominance that existed before European imperial expansion.
“For most of history, India and China dominated the world economy, and Europe was an add-on,” Dalrymple said.
“They were producing about 70% of the world’s GDP. That’s still the case in the 18th century.”
Today’s global economic shifts, he suggests, are less a dramatic new development than a return to historical norms.
“When we’re looking at the world today, China already the world’s number two economy, and India about to be number three, overtaking Japan and Germany.
“What we’re seeing is a reversal of the trading system to a pre-colonial period. It’s taken 80 years since the British left India.”
Rather than viewing Europe’s dominance as inevitable, Dalrymple argues that it was a relatively brief period in global history.
“We’re seeing the world recover from this brief blip where Europe smashed its way around the globe moving populations and natural resources around, looting some places, bringing wealth to Europe.”
His assessment extends to Britain’s own architectural heritage.
“If you look at the big National Trust country houses, if it’s a big Palladian house, the sort you’d see in a Jane Austen Sunday night drama, if it’s on the east coast of the country, quite probably it was built by East India Company money – in other words the looting of India.
“If it’s on the west coast, near Liverpool or Bristol, it’s more likely to be slave money from the Caribbean.”
According to Dalrymple, these sources of wealth helped finance Britain’s rapid industrialisation.
“These two sources of wealth brought capital into Britain, and cotton into Britain, which was then milled in the Industrial Revolution, which gave the seed capital for Britain to accelerate massively through the Industrial Revolution.
“Which catapulted England from an upper middle position in Europe.
“It transforms Britain and the world.”
However, he argues that Britain’s prosperity came at immense cost elsewhere.
“What gives us great prosperity often detracted from the prosperity of the looted countries, or countries that have been plundered for enslaved people.”
The debate over Britain’s colonial history is not simply about assigning blame for past events. It is about historical literacy.
Without studying empire, many people struggle to understand why English became a global language, why Britain has longstanding connections with countries across Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, how migration patterns developed, or why economic inequalities between nations often have deep historical roots.
The omission also leaves many people without the context needed to understand contemporary international relations. Debates surrounding reparations, the legacy of slavery, global trade, immigration and Britain’s changing place in the world all become harder to grasp when the history underpinning them is absent from education.
Dalrymple finds it remarkable that Britain’s schools devote extensive attention to royal personalities while often overlooking events that reshaped the global economy.
“It remains a strange quirk of our history system that we learn more about the wives of Henry VIII than we do about the entire looting of India, or the Caribbean slave trade.
“Two crucial moments in Britain’s and the world’s history.”
He believes one explanation lies in the way Britain dealt with the end of empire itself.
“The reason we don’t learn it is because when the British Empire ended, it became something people stopped talking about.”
By the late twentieth century, the empire had largely faded from public discussion.
“By the time you get to Monty Python in the late 1960s or 1970s, the Empire is a joke.”
Whether one views the British Empire as a source of national pride, exploitation, innovation or injustice, historians increasingly argue that understanding it is essential to understanding modern Britain. The debate is no longer simply about what happened overseas centuries ago, but about whether a nation can fully understand itself without confronting one of the defining forces in its own history.
