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Imperial Island
An Alternative History of the British Empire
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Charlotte Lydia Riley
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2024
About this book
After the Second World War, Britain's overseas empire disintegrated. But over the next seventy years, empire came to define Britain and its people as never before. Drawing on a mass of new research, Riley tells a story of immigration and exclusion, social strife and cultural transformation. It is the story that best explains Britain today.
Reviews
Riley’s absorbing new book…[is] a history of modern multicultural Britain and the myriad ways in which it has been shaped by empire and imperialism…Riley’s skills as a social historian are demonstrated to best effect in her use of personal testimonies, oral histories and popular culture sources to bring to life the everyday experiences of new migrants…The book is particularly rich on civil society campaigns against racism, and at documenting the political role played by the anti-war left in modern Britain…dexterously handled and carefully sourced.
-- Financial Times
-- Financial Times
A withering indictment of cruel Britannia…Riley gives injustices that ought to be better known their due.
-- The Guardian
-- The Guardian
Riley shows that attitudes to empire in Britain were always complex and contested…[She] provides some important corrections…[and] charts how, in the wake of decolonisation, imperialism continued to shape life in Britain…Riley shows, too, that our ‘history wars’ have a long history of their own.
-- New Statesman
-- New Statesman
At a time when discussion of the subject [of empire] can quickly devolve into ill-informed polemic, [this book] offers an extensively researched, thought-provoking alternative.
-- History Revealed
-- History Revealed
Riley’s book…examin[es], with considerable skill, Britain’s postwar retreat from empire…[and] recounts, with particular sympathy, the experiences faced by immigrants from the former empire.
-- The Telegraph
-- The Telegraph
Riley's prose flows smoothly, connecting the dots to give the reader the wider picture. For anyone curious about Britain's colonial legacy in the modern era, Imperial Island will certainly be an eye-opener.
-- The National
-- The National
[A] sure-footed history of Britain and its empire. The familiar national story from the people’s war of 1939–45 through to Brexit in 2016 and beyond is retold with the legacies of colonialism and racism front and centre…Few have pursued the theme with as much gusto as Riley.
-- Miles Taylor History Today
-- Miles Taylor History Today
Incisive, important, and incredibly timely. With a discerning eye for historical detail and a gift for storytelling, Riley traces the arc of empire’s post–World War II influence on Britain and the nation’s relationship to the world. Imperial Island is an urgent and necessary account for anyone wanting to understand how Britain became the nation it is today.
-- Caroline Elkins, author of Legacy of Violence
-- Caroline Elkins, author of Legacy of Violence
In Imperial Island, Charlotte Lydia Riley shows us that Empire’s legacy is soaked into Britain’s landscapes and built into its cities. From immigrant woes and racial tensions to the way in which imperial mindsets still color relations among black, white, and brown Britons, Empire is inescapably in the country’s national DNA. An eye-opening study of the Empire within.
-- Shashi Tharoor, author of Inglorious Empire
-- Shashi Tharoor, author of Inglorious Empire
Charlotte Lydia Riley radically retells a stale old story in her clear, bold, refreshing voice. Skillfully, inexorably, and powerfully, she builds up a picture that’s been hiding in plain sight for far too long.
-- Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, host of Unsolved Histories with Lucy Worsley, and author of Agatha Christie
-- Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, host of Unsolved Histories with Lucy Worsley, and author of Agatha Christie
A masterful, ingeniously written telling of Britain’s real history, stripped of its sugarcoating. Read this incisive and forensic book, and you won’t look at Britain in the same way ever again.
-- Owen Jones, author of Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class
-- Owen Jones, author of Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class
An immaculately detailed and impeccably researched account of what shaped Britain as we know it, following the collapse of empire. This is an urgent book and fine example of why the past, and knowledge of the past, is so important in the present.
-- Helen Carr, author of The Red Prince: The Life of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster
-- Helen Carr, author of The Red Prince: The Life of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster
Marvelous, engaging, and unflinching. Riley’s quest to ‘dignify unpowerful, unfamous people’s lives’ is both admirable and accomplished. This is a book not just about how big events impact ordinary people, but what it means to comprehend those world-historical events through their lives. We are given access to a wide variety of lenses, across class and race and geographical location, through which to appreciate how and why everyday citizens—and some who fought for recognition as such—were witnesses to history, and even drivers of it. Imperial Island is in fact an alternative history of the British empire, in part because it takes empire at home as a given and illustrates with a raft of irrefutable evidence how powerfully it has shaped practically all aspects of modern and contemporary British life.
-- Antoinette Burton, author of The Trouble with Empire: Challenges to Modern British Imperialism
-- Antoinette Burton, author of The Trouble with Empire: Challenges to Modern British Imperialism
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Empire’s Shadows Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF |
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The Attlee Government, 1945–1951 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF |
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Britain in the 1950s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF |
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Decolonization, 1950s–1960s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF |
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Migration and Racism in the 1960s and 1970s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF |
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Empire, War, and Famine in the 1980s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF |
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Imperialism since the 1990s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF |
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Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Rhodes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF |
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
May 21, 2024
eBook ISBN:
9780674296923
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
320
eBook ISBN:
9780674296923
Keywords for this book
migration; immigrant; united kingdom; england; london; gender; decolonization; postcolonial; kamal chunchie; clement attlee; brexit; rhodesia; discrimination; caribbean; commonwealth; white settler; nationalism; irish; thatcher; apartheid; tony blair
