Lest We Remember: what Oxford's war memorial tells us about the British Empire and why that matters

Is Britain ashamed of its past, and if not should it be? A dilapidated war memorial in Oxford city-centre seems a strange place to begin a search to the answer to these questions but this intriguing book does just that. It takes us from the mountains of Afghanistan to the tropics of Uganda to tell a tale of one city's often surprising links with the British Empire.

Uncomfortable questions are raised with the focus as much on those commemorated on the memorial as on those who they came into c...