In Uncivilised, Subhadra Das interrogates ten enduring myths that continue to legitimise Western supremacy, tracing how ideas of “civilisation” were constructed to justify slavery, colonisation, and imperial violence.

Drawing on her expertise as a historian and museum curator, Das reveals how scientific racism, cultural hierarchies, and false narratives of progress are embedded in public memory and educational institutions within the book.

Each chapter explores a different “lie” and how it shaped Britain’s colonial worldview, from notions of linear progress to eugenics. The book is both accessible and rigorously researched, encouraging readers to confront uncomfortable truths and rethink what is taken for granted in national and academic histories.

This reference was recommended by the Bartlett Pan-African Indigenist Collective.

The Collective is a space for critical dialogue, activism, and scholarship that foregrounds Pan-African Indigenist ways of knowing, being, and creating. Formed by members of the Bartlett community dedicated to uplifting the voices, knowledge, and cultural legacies of people of African heritage and their respective Indigenous communities and lands, it aims to challenge colonial legacies and inspire transformation within institutional structures, research and curricula. By integrating creative and scholarly practices, the Collective works to restore narratives that have been silenced or misrepresented. Their work advances decolonial efforts in higher education by creating inclusive spaces and centring diverse African knowledge systems. Bartlett Alternative recognises the Collective’s vital contribution to broadening intellectual and cultural horizons through radical inclusivity and exclusivity, and thanks them for sharing resources that foreground lived experience, land-based knowledge systems, and epistemic justice.

Department Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment