Books

Our Islands’ Story

Nigel Biggar, Robert Tombs

There is a need to tell a better story about Britain because bad stories are being told. These are ‘bad’ in the sense both of doing the historical facts an injustice, and of causing damaging political effects. One bad story currently dominant is one that portrays Britain as a systemically racist country, whose racism is rooted in its colonial history, which was nothing but a litany of worldwide oppression and exploitation. This bad story has real-time political consequences.

A Better Story About Britain will counter these stories with a better one — more historically honest, more appreciative of the legacy of Britain’s past, and more hopeful about Britain’s future.

Hardback

ISBN: 9781800756755

Published: October 22, 2026

Ebook

ISBN: 9781800756762

Published: October 22, 2026

Category:
Non-fiction

Author

Nigel Biggar

Nigel Biggar, CBE is Lord Biggar of Castle Douglas and Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford. Described as “one of the leading living Western ethicists” (John Gray, New Statesman, 2020), he was appointed Commander of the British Empire “for services to higher education” in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours list and named one of Prospect magazine’s Top Thinkers of 2024. In January 2025 he entered the House of Lords as a Conservative peer. He is the author of the best-selling Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning.

Robert Tombs

Robert Tombs is Emeritus Professor of French History at the University of Cambridge and a Life Fellow of St John’s College. He is the author of The English and Their History and This Sovereign Isle.