Empireland

I love this book because it describes Sanghera’s personal journey into the history of the British empire, something he barely learned about in his school lessons in the UK.

The book is great because it doesn’t assume prior knowledge about the topic, so it goes over some basics that are easy to miss. In places, it’s funny; in places, it's sad, but the best thing about Empire is its feel for narrating a good story and being transparent about some of the personal feelings that this history brought up for the author

Up until the 1960s, Buckingham Palace barred “colored immigrants” from working in clerical roles in the royal household. A recent official report demonstrated that both the Metropolitan Police and the Home Office are “institutionally racist.”

Meanwhile, recent estimates put the amount of wealth extracted by the British from India between 1765 and 1938 at $45 trillion and from Africa at $777 trillion. Despite these findings, nearly thirty percent of Britons believe the former colonies were better off under the empire. The reason that these forms of casual racism persist, Sanghera argues in this highly readable book, is a function of… show more.

This is a brilliantly written book about how Britain was built from its empire. It explodes the myths and takes the shine off the glorious empire and brings some of its darker aspects into a brighter light.

Sanghera’s account is well-researched, and both wide-ranging and personal. It fills in some of the gaps skipped over in my school’s history classes and gives context to some of the events, places and people I had heard of only fleetingly in the past. It is a surprisingly short book for a subject so vast. It made me want to find out more.

The British Empire covered 20% of the World’s land – described as the Empire where the sun never set. But what do we really know about the British Empire and its legacy? British colonialism: its massacres, enslavement, and racism are not taught in schools.

For me, this book examines the British Empire and how we avoid dealing with its problematic and painful history. One of the best chapters is Chapter 11, “Selective Amnesia,” which discusses how many in the British establishment have great nostalgia for The Empire and use it to illustrate the greatness of the British. When polled, a… show more.