Corinne Fowler

Labour Left Podcast

Our guest Corinne Fowler, Professor of Colonialism and Heritage at the University of Leicester, specialises in colonial history, decolonisation and the British countryside’s relationship with the Empire.

It’s fair to say that her most recent books Green Unpleasant Land: Creative Responses to Rural England’s Colonial Connections and Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain have well and truly triggered Britain’s emergent populist right.

The Spectator and the Daily Telegraph historians where so quick off the mark that they didn’t even bother to read Corinne’s new book. In a departure from academic orthodoxy, they launched their attacks before publication.

So, why did Professor Corrine Fowler boil their blood? Back in 2019, Corinne was seconded to the National Trust to lay the foundations for a new training and interpretation programme about country houses’ colonial connections. As part of her secondment, she co-authored an academic report for the National Trust which brought together much of the existing academic and peer appraised writing on the Trust’s properties many links to colonialism.

To say that the populist right weren’t quite ready to embrace the filling of gaps in our history doesn’t quite capture the moment. The ‘war on woke’ warriors kicked off to defend their history from above and make sure that everybody else’s history remained silenced.

Nigel Farage talked of the ‘trashing of our nation’ and the Daily Telegraph responded to the, peer appraised, academic report by announcing that the National Trust was ‘at war with the past’. As if that wasn’t enough the unfortunately named Tory Common Sense Group declared the ‘Battle of Britain’.

Corinne Fowler’s patient telling of our history is a compelling story. You can listen to the podcast here, find out about her new book and hear what it’s like to find yourself on the front line of the war on woke.

Our Island Stories has ten carefully curated walks and it is our book of the summer for 2024. If you want to know why Britain’s colonial history abroad and its labour history at home count as “two sides of the same coin” this is the book for you.

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Bryn Griffiths is the host of Labour Hub's spin off the Labour Left Podcast. He is an activist in the labour movement, Momentum and The World Transformed in North Essex. You can find all the episodes of the Labour left Podcast here or if you prefer audio platforms (e.g. Amazon, Audible Spotify, Apple etc,) just search for Labour Left Podcast.

Bryn Griffiths is standing for the National Policy Forum CLP Representatives Eastern Region Division 1. He is standing as part of the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance team and you can find all your left candidates across the country here. When the General Election is over, please campaign for all the left candidates.