British historians shaped ideas of empire

Priya Satia (Image credit: Steve Castillo) - British policymakers used history to rationalize the immorality of empire, says Stanford historian Priya Satia. The role of the historian is a complex one. For many, the term itself implies a certain distance and objectivity, someone who interprets what has come before, perhaps with the notion that those currently in power might use that information to impact the present. But what happens when historians are the ones in power, using their own understanding of the past to actively shape the present? This question is at the heart of historian Priya Satia 's new book Time's Monster: How History Makes History . Satia, the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History in the School of Humanities and Sciences , argues that when history emerged as a mode of ethics in the 18th century, British historians became the source of morally questionable decisions in the building of a vast empire that resulted in suffering for millions of subjugated peoples. "In the last half of the 18th century, Enlightenment philosophers said we needed to study the past for moral education - as a source of ethical guidance," Satia said. "Before that, societies wouldn't have looked to history but to theology, or astrology or community culture.