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As well as chronicling the familiar sins of empire, particularly in India, the author gives a fair hearing to those who emphasise the more positive aspects of imperial rule, railways, courts and all. And just as Britain has an imperial past, he recognises that it also has a liberal, anti-imperialist history—of abolishing the slave trade and spreading democracy, albeit in limited form. The empire is laid bare in all its contradictory complexity.
作者不僅記述了帝國（尤其是印度）常見的罪惡，還為那些強調帝國統治、鐵路和法院等事物的更積極方面的人提供了公正的申訴機會。正如英國有著帝國主義的過去一樣，桑赫拉認識到英國也有著自由、反帝國主義的歷史，比如廢除奴隸貿易和傳播民主，盡管形式有限。大英帝國暴露出它所有矛盾的復雜性。
The same goes for its legacy. Mr Sanghera, a writer for the Times, justifiably criticises Britons for not being more receptive to immigrants, but he is no reflexive admirer of “pure multiculturalism”. He acknowledges that a laissez-faire approach to integration has sometimes allowed immigrant communities to “become isolated and myopic”. He argues that immigrants themselves are sometimes to blame for this—and that the people who suffer most are families like his own: “Too much of my energy as a young adult was expended on getting my family to accept that I wanted to be more British, to change more quickly than they were.”
大英帝國的遺留問題也是如此。《泰晤士報》的作家桑赫拉對英國人不太接受移民的批評合乎情理，但他并不是“純粹多元文化主義”的本能崇拜者。他承認，自由放任的融合方式有時會讓移民社區“變得孤立和缺乏遠見”。他認為，有時候，移民本身是造成這種情況的罪魁禍首，而受害最深的是如他自己這般的家庭：“作為一個年輕人，我花了太多的精力讓我的家人接受我想變成更純粹的英國人，我希望我的轉變要比我的家人更快。”
As for knocking over more statues, he concludes that rather than trying to obliterate imperial history, which will always infuriate as many people as it pleases, Britain should commemorate more of the colonised people who challenged and reformed the empire, or indeed died for it on the battlefield. In short, more, not fewer, plinths and plaques. That would give a clearer and more textured picture of Britain’s imperial past—just like Mr Sanghera’s excellent book.
至于是否要推倒更多雕像，他總結說，英國不該試圖去抹殺帝國歷史，這樣的行為總是會惹眾怒。英國應該更多地紀念那些挑戰和改革帝國，或者真正在戰場上為帝國出生入死的殖民地人民。簡言之，英國要設立更多的紀念碑，而不是把雕像都推倒。這樣的行為將展現更清晰、更有質感的英國帝國主義歷史風貌，就像桑赫拉先生的優秀著作一樣。
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