ABSTRACT
The postmodern challenge has foregrounded the fact that history is never neutral; it is always written from a particular ethical perspective. Popular histories of the event, museum information boards on the Benin Bronzes and associated educational resources in contemporary British museums describe the expedition as retaliatory or punitive, implying that the British were only responding to an act of aggression by the people or ruler of Benin. The main institutional instruments of historicisation developed into their modern forms alongside the new imperialism of the nineteenth century and the shift towards the nation-state as a means of delineating geo-political space. Sande Cohen occupies a similar critical position, arguing that historians provide the data that give particular social formations present credibility by anchoring them to perceived traditions or inter-generationally shared values. In contrast with the historians discussed, Keith Jenkins argues that the challenge of postmodernism has simply highlighted that history no longer serves any useful function.
