Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Alan Lester

@alanlester.bsky.social

15K followers 6.7K following 1.6K posts

British Empire Professor, University of Sussex. Co-editor, MUP Studies in Imperialism series. Views here own. Blogs on politics of colonial history here: https://alanlester.co.uk Editor https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/the-truth-about-empire/ .. more

Videos

Alan Lester is a British historical geographer and author who has worked for Sussex University since 2000. He was appointed Professor of Historical Geography in 2006. He is known for his research on imperial networks, colonial humanitarianism and imperial governance. .. more

Political science 40%

Sociology 34%

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · Apr 30

The podcast of David Olusoga and I discussing Empire & the rewriting of history:

howtoacademy.com/podcasts/dav...

HOW TO PODCAST | David Olusoga & Alan Lester - The Truth About the British Empire

David Olusoga and Alan Lester reveal the dark realities of the British Empire, and reflect on the importance of historians amid the resurgence of nationalism and misinformation.

howtoacademy.com

1 24 100

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 18h

Sorry, afraid not.

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 1d

My review of Walter Reid’s last book on Churchill, a good book unfairly trashed by hysterical Churchill worshippers.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

1 3 5

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 1d

The Truth About Empire. Foreword by Sathnam Sanghera, essays by expert colonial historians. BBC History Magazine Book of the Year choice. Now available for pre-order in paperback:

www.hurstpublishers.com/book/the-tru...

The Truth About Empire | Hurst Publishers

Foreword by Sathnam Sanghera Selected as a 'Book of the Year' by BBC History Magazine Sharp, authoritative essays on the dark realities of Empire and the true historian’s importance for democracy, a...

www.hurstpublishers.com

1 13 48

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Peter Thorne, Steve Peers , and 5 more Anna O. Law, Peter Thorne, Steve Peers, Juan Cole, Alan Lester, Kevin Carey, Scott A. Imberman, Dariusz Galasiński

George Gantsoudes @pedsortho.bsky.social · 2d

Please remember that the disgust people have over Christopher Columbus is not based on some modern, 21st century “woke” ideology, but rather on contemporaneous accounts of atrocities that make many modern genocides appear quaint in comparison.

Below, are the accounts of Bartlomé de las Casas.

But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had in-vested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.
The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.

After each six or eight months' work in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third of the men died.
While the men were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the soil, forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants.
Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides... they ceased to pro-create. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and fam-ished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desper-ation.... In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk ... and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fer-tile... was depopulated... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write....

20 2.6K 6.8K

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 2d

Searing truths about Israel, the West and complicity in genocide from @nesrinemalik.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

While the perpetrators of Gaza’s genocide pose as its saviours, survivors return home – to a wasteland | Nesrine Malik

Western leaders attending the Sharm el-Sheikh summit have enabled and sponsored this slaughter. They are in no position to build a Palestinian future, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

www.theguardian.com

1 15 18

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 3d

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Don’t fall for the authoritarian hype – Reform and the hard right can be stopped in their tracks | Gordon Brown

From the US to Europe and Asia, grievances are being exploited to gain power. But moderate voices are still in tune with the majority, says former prime minister Gordon Brown

www.theguardian.com

2 8 31

Reposted by Alan Lester

Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 4d

The thing I'm "stunned" about is why this isn't the biggest domestic news item on every flipping platform

bylinetimes.com/2025/10/11/s...

'Stunned?' Farage's Admission He Knew Nathan Gill but Not His Kremlin Associates Does Not Stand Up to Scrutiny

Insiders have told Byline Times it is 'inconceivable' the Reform Leader did not know about his close aide's pro Russian statements

bylinetimes.com

81 810 1.8K

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 7d

As in East India Company?

www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt...

Slavery, Abolitionism and Empire in India, 1772–1843 on JSTOR

‘There are no two things in the world more different from each other than East-Indian and West Indian-slavery’ (Robert Inglis, House of Commons Debate, 1833). I...

www.jstor.org

2 1

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 7d

Its strange how, amidst calls to draw more attention to British suppression of slavery in the Indian Ocean & East Africa (and to focus less on British slavery in the Atlantic), this excellent study by Moses Nwulia (1975) is so neglected. Maybe to do with his ‘humanitarianism of self-interest’ idea?

2 5 18

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 7d

Brilliant analysis of Kemi Badenoch’s self-destructive addiction to culture war from @rafaelbehr.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Badenoch’s ‘thoughtful Conservatism’ turns out to be just the slower road to Faragism | Rafael Behr

The Tory leader’s intellectual meanderings have shrunk her party into little more than a holding pen for future Reform party candidates, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr

www.theguardian.com

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 7d

2/2 CLR James urged the League of Nations to act against modern slavery as he called for reparative help for the Caribbean.
What, I wonder, has Philip Hensher done for those victims aside from using their plight as a bogus argument against reparations?

alanlester.co.uk/blog/the-ant...

The Anti-Reparations Bible

Alan Lester Promoting the Anti-Reparations Bible Britain’s right-wing press has mobilised to promote Nigel Biggar’s latest book, Reparations: Slavery and the Tyranny of Imaginary Guilt as the defin…

alanlester.co.uk

4 18

Reposted by Vaughan S. Roberts

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 7d

1/2 Actually, Philip & the Spectator, quite a lot. TF Buxton first argued for compensation to the enslaved before agreeing to pay it to slave owners instead. He founded what’s now Antislavery International.

1 5 26

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 8d

@channel4news.bsky.social reported David Norris’ belated confession of involvement in Stephen Lawrence’s racist murder immediately after highlighting that being openly, blatantly racist is no longer an impediment to an ambitious politician, but an asset. History is not progress.

4 20

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 8d

Robert Jenrick’s comments did not have “undertones of racism" as the local MP says in this clip. They were explicitly, unequivocally, racist. He equates a lack of integration with the absence of "a white face". If this not racist what is?

www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Jenrick accused of racism over ‘no white faces’ comments as he also claims ‘collapse of old order is in sight’ – UK politics live

Labour mayor of the West Midlands says Jenrick’s comments about Handsworth were racist

www.theguardian.com

6 30

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 8d

I’m only just catching up with Sam Dalrymple talking about his innovative book Shattered Lands on Empire pod. Well worth a listen to understand the genesis of both South Asian & Middle Eastern geopolitics amidst the demise of British imperialism.

open.spotify.com/episode/0cmP...

Spotify – Web Player

open.spotify.com

1 3 10

Reposted by Andrew Scott, Alan Lester

Alex Renton @axrenton.bsky.social · 8d

Thank you @alanlester.bsky.social for keeping eye on the mad, racist right-wing media so we don't have to.

15 39

Reposted by Vaughan S. Roberts

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 8d

Follow the money

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Asylum hotel provider makes £180m profit despite claims of inedible food and rationed loo paper

Asylum seekers and charities tell BBC of

www.bbc.co.uk

17 43

Reposted by Alan Lester, Laurent Pech

Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 8d

More in the breathless, breaking stop-the-presses, and not at all confected story, that judges, before they were judges, were involved in practising law. Take 5 seconds to appreciate just how hard into "swivel-eyed loon" Robert Jenrick is being allowed to lean:

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...

13 46 170

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 9d

It’s amazing how Trump’s sole motivation for politics - extreme & childish narcissism- is now priced into global geopolitics. Commentators are linking his role in Gaza with his petulant insistence on a Nobel Peace Prize with just a shrug of the shoulders 🤷‍♀️

1 1 11

Reposted by Vaughan S. Roberts

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 9d

What a deeply problematic column from Lord Sewell in today’s @thetimes.com. Makes you wonder whether why those on the right are so unwilling to distinguish between objecting to a UN-recognised GENOCIDE and anti-semitism?

4 12 37

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 9d

Mason sees Islam as the only disruptive religious identity, prone to ‘radicalism’. Aren’t Christian nationalism imported from the US far right & a form of Zionism supporting a genocide unBritish too?

Chris Mason: Why protests have started a debate over 'Britishness' www.bbc.com/news/article...

Chris Mason: Why protests have started a debate over 'Britishness'

Against the backdrop of grief after the Manchester attack, there is debate about which tenets should be fundamental in our society, writes Chris Mason.

www.bbc.com

6 8 32

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 11d

Reactions to this horror fall into two categories. Those, including the terrorist himself, who frame opposition to the Israeli government’s genocide as hating Jews. And those, including many Jews, who insist on marking the difference.

www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Kemi Badenoch: Dial down rhetoric on Israel after synagogue attack

The Tory leader said Jews faced a ‘climate of fear and aggression’ as senior figures from the community lined up to criticise the government over antisemitism

www.thetimes.com

3 27

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 12d

If you have a moment could you send me a link please? Thanks

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 12d

No but will take a look thanks Anna.

1 2

Reposted by Lesley A. Hall, Jane Lydon, Ramón López Facal

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 12d

In the current issue of Ab Imperio: a defence of scholarly integrity against right wing historical propaganda:
Full text here:

alanlester.co.uk/blog/accusat...

1 6 31

Reposted by Alan Lester

Huw C. Davies @huwcdavies.bsky.social · 13d

Dan, this is exactly what the hosts of Trigonometry believe too. I hope you were able to challenge them about this on their show? Really enjoy HH btw.

2 6

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 13d

Yes I mean Biggar’s and other arguments are intended to stop a conversation. Glad we agree one is needed. I’m not being hypocritical since I’m not arguing that any of us owe individual reparations. Both racist & anti-racist arguments have been pushed & held by a wide X section, not just elites.

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 13d

You’re anticipating discussions that these arguments are designed to prevent. I wouldn’t be a stakeholder in them so I can’t answer your queries. And no I won’t be making personal reparations. Debt relief & assistance with climate change preparedness would be most likely form at state level.

Reposted by Andrew Scott, Jane Lydon, Andrekos Varnava

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 13d

The @telegraphnews.bsky.social, @dailymail.co.uk and @thespectator1828.bsky.social have all promoted Nigel Biggar’s latest book as the definitive riposte to reparations claims. But what exactly are its arguments and how do they stand up to scrutiny?

alanlester.co.uk/blog/the-ant...

The Anti-Reparations Bible

alanlester.co.uk

1 14 28

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 13d

Lots of media discussion and condemnation of the racism & Islamophobia expressed by police in the Panorama documentary last night. Somewhat less reflection on the media’s role in legitimising precisely such views.

1 7 59