“Arduous and dated theory” was my first impression as I waded through the first few chapters. “Male centred” certainly.

But then the simple demonstrations to me that Europe fought the nazis because they didn’t want to be colonised by them hit home hard. Of course I had all the pieces but I had never quite put them together before. Or if I had, then I hadn’t spent time looking at the picture and realising that the British empire was not just evil but grotesquely hypocritical on its very face.

The late chapter that simply and calmly recounts some mental health cases and in doing so matter of factly describes the tortures and abuses of colonialism was truly sickening.

My grandad fought the Nazis. For him it was good versus evil.

Fully understanding and realising that the “side” he fought on did just what the Nazis wanted to do to us, repeatedly, in Africa and Asia is painful and difficult to digest. But there it is.

It brought to mind two things for me:

All the descriptions of ISIS as animals in our media when we have done every evil and savage thing that they are doing.

This book reflects in some small way on an African Holocaust of staggering proportion.