Britain's empire once made it the most powerful nation on earth. But according to Sathnam Sanghera we are either silent or awkward at best when speaking about it. Sanghera himself was not taught about the empire in school and it was only in his forties that he began to research and understand the history of why he and his Sikh Indian family ended up in Wolverhampton.

In June 2023 Sanghera, author of the bestselling 'Empireland', came to Intelligence Squared where, in conversation with journalist and broadcaster Kavita Puri, he discussed how and why the history of empire has, in his view, been stolen from the collective consciousness. He will discuss the colonial rulers who covered up and burned important documents to hide their affairs – so much so that there was a plume of smoke over Delhi when the British were leaving the city in 1947. And by the modern backlash of politicians and journalists who attack and dismiss historians that seek to shed light about Britain's past as 'woke culture warriors'.