Just as in the early twentieth century the default consensus at a university such as Oxford would have been that the empire was a force for good, so by the early twenty-first century it had become the default position at such places that the empire was solely a force for bad. The dogma had simply shifted. So now it was not even possible to try to weigh up the moral complexities of empire without being accused of being an apologist for, or supporter of, colonialism. Inadvertently, these critics showed the fragility of their arguments.
