Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain

by Sathnam Sanghera, Homer Todiwala (Narrator)

In his brilliantly illuminating new book Sathnam Sanghera demonstrates how so much of what we consider to be modern Britain is actually rooted in our imperial past. In prose that is, at once, both clear-eyed and full of acerbic wit, Sanghera shows how our past is everywhere: from how we live to how we think, from the foundation of the NHS to the nature of our racism, from our distrust of intellectuals in public life to the exceptionalism that imbued the campaign for Brexit and the government's early response to the COVID crisis. And yet empire is a subject weirdly hidden from view.

The British Empire ran for centuries and covered vast swathes of the world. It is, as Sanghera reveals, fundamental to understanding Britain. However, even among those who celebrate the empire there seems to be a desire not to look at it too closely - not to include the subject in our school history books, not to emphasise it too much in our favourite museums.

At a time of great division, when we are arguing about what it means to be British, Sanghera's book urges us to address this bewildering contradiction. For it is only by stepping back and seeing where we really come from that we can begin to understand who we are and what unites us.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Audiobook, Race, India, Historical

Audiobook

First published January 28, 2021

About the author

Sathnam Sanghera was born to Punjabi parents in the West Midlands in 1976, attended Wolverhampton Grammar School and graduated from Christ’s College, Cambridge with a first class degree in English Language and Literature in 1998. Before becoming a writer he (among other things) worked at a burger chain, a hospital laundry, a market research firm, a sewing factory and a literacy project in New York.

Between 1998 and 2006 he was at The Financial Times, where he worked (variously) as a news reporter in the UK and the US, specialised in writing about the media industries, worked across the paper as Chief Feature Writer, and wrote an award-winning weekly business column. Sathnam joined The Times as a columnist and feature writer in 2007, reviews cars for Management Today and has presented a number of radio documentaries for the BBC.

Sathnam’s first book, The Boy With The Topknot: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies in Wolverhampton, was shortlisted for the 2008 Costa Biography Award, the 2009 PEN/Ackerley Prize and named 2009 Mind Book of the Year. His novel, Marriage Material, has been shortlisted for a 2014 South Bank Sky Arts Award and a 2013 Costa Book Award, been longlisted for the 2014 Desmond Elliot Prize, picked by The Sunday Times, The Observer and Metro as one of the novels of 2013, and is being developed as a multi-part TV drama by Kudos.

He has won numerous prizes for his journalism, including Article of the Year in the 2005 Management Today Writing Awards, Newspaper Feature of the Year in the 2005 Workworld Media Awards, HR Journalist of the Year in the 2006 and 2009 Watson Wyatt Awards for Excellence and the accolade of Young Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards in 2002.

He was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters for services to journalism by The University of Wolverhampton in September 2009 and a President’s Medal by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2010, while GQ Magazine named him as one of “The Men of Next 25 years” in 2013, with writer Jonathan Coe saying that “whether he’s writing autobiography or fiction, Sathnam is busy carving out his own literary niche – in the multicultural British Midlands – which he explores with incredible grace, generosity and humour”.

The Boy With The Topknot, was originally published by Penguin in hardback as If You Don’t Know Me By Now. He is trustee and board chair for Creative Access, a charity which helps find internships in the creative industries for talented young people from under-represented backgrounds. He lives in London.

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

Tremendous overview of the impact of British colonialism: what it did, how it feeds into the current British character, and why we're quite so deliberately amnesiac about things like the literal genocide carried out in Tasmania, details of which I am, actually, going to try to forget because Jesus Christ.

A terrific read, with lively engaging style, very personal, and dealing with tough subjects in a staggeringly even-handed, considered way.

As one of the vast majority of British schoolchildren who barely heard the word 'empire' mentioned while I studied history up to the age of 18, I found this profoundly enlightening and informative. Big recommendation.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The impulses behind such amnesia are easy to understand. There have been many stages in educating myself about British empire when I have wanted to look away. When reading about … Captain Cornelius Hodges, a man who worked for the Royal African Company in the Gambia area and who, when his African wife had given birth to a black baby, accused her of committing an infidelity and crushed the infant in a mortar and fed it to dogs,"' I have longed to do something else instead. I love my country and want to believe the best things about it. If I found nostalgic BBC2 programmes about the Indian railways soothing, I would have happily watched them instead. But the problem is, if you don't face up to these uncomfortable facts, you'll never be able to navigate a path forwards. Freudian psychoanalysts believe that if you deny or repress a traumatic experience, you risk acting out versions of the original trauma in ways that can be self-defeating. If we don't confront the reality of what happened in British empire, we will never be able to work out who we are or who we want to be.

A very easy to read (almost popular history) non-fiction account of Britain and its Imperial past, whose effective argument is that without understanding that past and how much the legacy of Empire is so bound up in all aspects of British culture (our museums full of cultural artefacts looted from around the world, our attitudes to immigration and emigration, our food, our educational establishments, our manufacturers, our cities and our large financial services industry, our external relations, our internal politics, our great houses etc) then we have no real way to understand our national identity and to then decide how to shape it going forwards. The author’s fundamental suggestion is for an honest reckoning of Imperial history to be embedded in the educational system.

The author is very open, that as (or possible even as) a Wolverhampton born Sikh his own knowledge of empire was very limited and that was what largely lead to the research for the book which then further inspired by BLM. Of an earlier documentary he made (on the Jallianwala massacre in 1919) he comments: When I made my documentary some people were surprised that I was surprised... One TV reviewer wrote: ‘It feels like a genuine revelation to Sanghera that the British Empire is, as he describes it, “an exercise in institutional racism”. Don’t many of us know this?’

And I think if there is an issue with this book it is that many people interested enough to read it – on the full spectrum from defenders of the Empire looking to be offended, to opponents looking for arguments to bolster their views – will probably find little new here and again be surprised that say the author is surprised at the number of Indian origin words in the English language (Bungalow – really, who knew) or that New York was obtained by the English in a colonial trade with the Dutch). However perhaps I am being unfair as the book is implicitly aimed at those unaware and as educational.

The book is largely well balanced I found - the author is very open on say the difficulties in really assessing the economical impacts of the empire on Britain or India.

The only time I perhaps felt the balance went wrong is a chapter on politics which becomes too partisan – for example quoting Britain having the highest death rate in Europe from COVID (in a book with 30 pages of references there is none for this – which is perhaps not suprising given it is complete nonsense: interestingly this speaks to a wider issue with the book that it itself assumes a level of British exceptionalism – the imperial pasts and racism of other countries receive very little mention). Similar there is a bizarre quote (in a book which seems to take Boris Johnson’s bluster at face value and does not seem to have much humour) on the idiosyncracies of Britain’s permanent UN Security Council seat “despite boasting only a fraction of China's population, a mere portion of Russia's surface area, a slice of the USA's economic might and a smidgen of France's culinary capabilities”.

He is also perhaps a little too keen to explain as much as possible via the Empire (something which becomes almost tautological at times given it was such a big part of Britain’s past). At others a little too all encompassing e.g. the British love of cosmopolitan/exotic food and the British conservatism with food are not only both held to be true but both held to be due to Empire, and at others ignoring all other aspects of the past – for example the UK’s role on (or in some places beyond) the fringes of the Roman Empire or the Reformation and how it influenced England re both apparently of little consequence for Brexit compared to the role of the East India Company.

But overall I found this a worthwhile and flowing read – and one I would certainly recommend to others.

[Andy Midwinter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've had this pre-ordered on Audible for weeks, and I have to say it lived up to my high expectation. Empireland is a detailed and fascinating account of the British Empire and how modern Britain is ingrained in the imperial past. A past that is more important than ever as we are now arguably more divided as a nation than ever before. This is an important read that while being a history lesson, is also accessible, and doesn’t get lost on you like some non-fiction books can. Highly recommended.

[Seyed · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a necessary book and has lots of interesting details but I struggled to appreciate it as much as perhaps others would. It is excellent at highlighting the way Britains have ignored the deep roots of Empire. It was rich in examples of how different cultural aspects have formed together to form modern British identity. It was not shy about noting the evils done by the British Empire nor the contributions that the subjects of Empire have made to Britain. A lot of the debates around multiculturalism, decolonisation and Britain's relationship with the rest of the world were made transparent.

However, in the end the journalistic / polemical style was a little overbearing. I felt I had got the most I could out of it by about chapter 7. By which point, I could not bear much more and had to stop reading. I think this is a book that is rich in information but unpersuasive to the unpersuaded. Which is a shame. I don't think the people who don't already have the author's sense of Britain's Imperial past are going to pick it up or get very far through it. Alas, worse for them and worse for me too for not being able to finish it to the end. But a more persuasive book in this genre would be welcome.

[Inderjit Sanghera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sathnam explores how deeply interwoven empire is in Britain, its threads running through British history and culture in unsurprising and surprising ways, from British nomenclature to architecture, the roots of the British Empire run deep. Given this, it is surprising how little British Empire is discussed or acknowledged in popular culture or education. Quite often empire is thought of fondly, as a paean to British industry and innovation, an example of Britain’s destiny to civilize the world, a paragon of moral rectitude to hold other, morally inferior empires to. All of this hides the deeply pernicious, self-serving and racist nature of empire; like every other empire from the Persian to the Roman, the British Empire’s main purpose was to further its own interests and disguise this, even in posterity, as somehow benefitting the people it subjugated. Unlike other empires however, the British Empire was run on racial lines; whereas many empires employ openly nationalists sentiments, the fault line of the British Empire rested on the shaky foundations of racial pseudo-science, on the fact that Black and Brown people were somehow uncivilized, lazy or stupid (or all three) and that their White masters were doing them a favour in civilizing them. These deeply racist views impacted everything from the slave trade to reprisals against Indians following the failed mutiny of 1848 and continue to run through Western society, creating the structural inequalities which still exist in most Western countries.

Sathnam is at pains to offer a more measured outlook on empire than just classifying everything under a binary category of empire being simply good or evil. Instead he has a more nuanced view on empire, whether empire was more beneficial than it was harmful is a slightly irrelevant argument which is also pointless as it is impossible to measure and acts as a distraction from the most important argument, which is how truthfully we acknowledge it’s impact in modern Britain. Sathnam’s conclusion is that we don’t, instead getting drawn into culture wars and viewing everything from the lens of which political affiliation we subscribe to. Instead Sathnam offers a more hopeful solution, one where we can explore the impacts of British Empire on all facets of British society without ideologizing the discussion, of acknowledging the pain the Empire holds for so many ethnic minorities in British society without people feeling like their culture and history is being attacked, of teaching empire at school in a way that allows for debate and discussion. Whether this materialises or not is another thing, but Sathnam’s hopeful tone could be a potential way of reconciling what currently feels irreconcilable.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s probably about time Britain faced up to its dark past and made education on the empire a key part of schooling. I’ve never been exposed to this kind of information which highlights the bias in the British school system.

[Rohan Fernando · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a Sri Lankan immigrant to the UK, I read this book with great interest. As a Times reader I usually enjoy Mr Sanghera's column in the paper. The book is well-written and gives valuable insights into how Britain has been shaped by the empire. As an immigrant, Mr Sanghera is able to observe certain characteristics of the British which they might not realise for themselves. However, there are serious problems with how he assesses the way the Empire affected the colonies. Mr Sanghera contends that since the British did some reprehensible acts, the good must be ignored. This is illogical. He gives detailed accounts of the massacres, famines and racism but does not mention Britain's role in improving governance, public services and infrastructure. In Sri Lanka, all our schools, hospitals law courts and parliament are based on the British model.

There is also a problem with his references. There are an enormous number of them, over 600 but they are almost all by the Western, liberal, elites who are invariably antagonistic towards the Empire and vilify it at every opportunity. There seems to be only one by an Indian who lived during the colonial era. This is astonishing given the large number of books written by Indians during the British period or in the decades immediately thereafter. These are people who experienced the Empire at first hand. The only Asians he quotes our ones born long after independence. Why have the voices of the Indians who in the best position to judge the Empire been put on mute?

I also wonder how much Mr Sanghera knows about life in India. He admits that his family spoke little about their lives in India, except his grandfather who respected the British. It is regrettable that Mr Sanghera did not explore why he held these views. When he went back to India he wasn't able to fully communicate with his family as he does not speak the language. Has Mr Sanghera ever visited an Indian school, hospital, law court, museum or parliament? These are the true legacies of the British Empire. Mr Sanghera spent some time in India researching the Amritsar massacre and it seems that he looks on the Empire through the prism of this event.

The book is worth reading but there are shortcomings. A critique of it based on references by Indians who lived during the Empire in given in:
http://www.forgotten-raj.org/doc/Empi...

[Sleepless Dreamer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I genuinely want to recommend this book to everyone I know.

An odd series of events has led to me writing my bachelor thesis on British Politics. I feel remarkably ignorant and just want to catch up on everything I've missed.

So Empireland is a book about the British Empire. Or, more accurately, how the British Empire shapes the UK now. Each chapter focuses on a different element of the empire.

What I loved so much about this book is that Sanghera is just remarkably nuanced. There's something so unideological about him. I found it inspirational, to be honest. He doesn't say, "the British Empire was wonderful, everyone should thank us" and he doesn't say, "The British Empire was a horrible and evil project, we've destroyed the world". Instead, he's constantly looking at specific stories. He doesn't flinch from describing the horrors of the Tasmanian genocide in great detail but he also never adopts the self-hate and dramatic guilt so commonly found in people who recognize the damage of the British Empire. Sanghera seems to come from such a place of kindness and genuine investment in improving the future that it's hard not to appreciate him.

Sanghera is constantly zooming into particular figures and stories. In this sense, he really brings history to life. The British Empire wasn't one massive organization but was truly many many small figures, each with its own motives and actions. Realizing this makes learning and reckoning with the crimes of the Empire harder.

This book works both as a history book but also as a personal reckoning. Sanghera discusses the role of the Sikhs in India as well as his own experiences as a second generation Brit now. He wonders whether he carries any guilt or what one does with this legacy. And yet, he's never righteous or self agonizing. He is just honest and genuine, a man standing in the face of a massive and complex heritage.

Much of the comments Sanghera makes are just refreshing. I don't know if this is because I've never read a book on the empire but this was the first time I heard anyone point out that returning stolen art was an argument made when the art was stolen. We haven't reached some moral enlightenment now- such voices existed and some art was even returned. This should make us question the ease in which we vilify the past and celebrate ourselves.

Additionally, Sanghera's comment on how immigrants are and have always been a core part of Britain was interesting to read. Like yes, that makes a lot of sense- the people who were under the empire are forever connected to the UK in some way or another. The UK cannot disconnect itself from what was done under its name. This, of course, makes racism against immigrants even more infuriating- none of these people are “aliens”.

This thought resonated with me in my visit in the Netherlands. It's interesting to see Indonesian and Surinamese food in the streets of the Hague, to realize that these people have reached the Netherlands because decisions the Netherlands made. We talk about how colonialism shaped colonized countries but this was my first time considering how it has shaped the colonializing countries. Sure, insurance was invented for colonial means, but what happened to British culture during colonialism? Which shifts can be attributed just to this?

Viewing Israel and Palestine under the light of British colonialism is also very interesting. The more I learn, I see how our own challenges are simply a continuation of the ethnic tensions that the British utilized to control the land. I don’t like leaning into arguments that blame all of the world’s problems on colonialism but maybe if the British had governed better, had seen Jews and Arabs as equally human, had attempted to treat both sides fairly, things would be better now.

To conclude, this book is both contemporary and historical. It’s a great intro book for anyone looking to learn more but I also think it could provide an interesting angle for more knowledgeable people.

what I’m taking with me
- it’s incredibly important to educate about the empire and especially the crimes of it, to face them in a way that is earnest but also never self-aggrandizing
- we spent a lot of time in my classes talking about the way it seems the empire is slowly falling apart, as it sometimes seems like a few more referendums and all the union will leave. It’s interesting to see how this process shapes political parties.
-behold, I'm trying to catch up on old reviews, this review was mostly written back in the beautiful days when i thought i'd write my bachelor thesis on immigration

----------------------------
This is the first book I've ever read on the British Empire and yet, I feel fairly confident to say it'll be the best one I'll ever read. Review to come

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really thought-provoking, fantastically written non-fiction. The sort of book that ought to be required reading.

[Ed Greening · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was keen to hear more on the experiences of empire from an alternative perspective. I was already braced for a jarring experience from the blurb, but hoped to be mistaken, but I was not.

The terms England and Britain, and English and British, are used interchangeably throughout. That the author elects to disparage the Scottish Independence movement with a throwaway remark about "nationalists" makes this all the more glaring.

The style is somewhat inappropriate throughout, with details of massacres and atrocities interwoven with the writer's fondness for pithy and observant one liners about instagram and modern life. Perhaps though this discordance works as a metaphor for many modern feelings about the empire.

This is not a work entirely without merit, with many interesting tales of real but forgotten agents acting throughout the empire. It is also eminently readable if one looks past the aforementioned lightness. I would even say I agree with many of the author's proposals that would allow for a more realistic public assessment of empire.

Unfortunately I was left open jawed at the writer's tone-deaf assessment of Wales, my country, and her place in the empire. I do not dispute that Wales glosses over its imperial past, and there is a certain romance for the colonial adventure of Y Wladfa which is distasteful. However to put this assessment in a paragraph following on from criticism of the government decision to destroy documents relating to the depopulation of Diego Garcia is frankly offensive. Wales itself not only colonised but was colonised, and treated as a colonial possession - just five years before the Diego Garcia incident, Capel Celig, a rare example of a Welsh language village, was flooded to make a reservoir to serve the needs of Liverpool. The Welsh people protested, Welsh politicians voted against the proposal, yet it still went ahead. The book also ignores how the Welsh language was systematically pushed to near extinction through measures such as the Welsh Not, all while celebrating "our language" of English.

Cofiwch Dryweryn.

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sathnam Sanghera is a Brit of Indian heritage.

In this book he explores the British Empire and the way it affects the UK today. I found it a challenging read, in that it was brim full of facts and ideas, and it certainly stretched my lazy conception of Empire.

SS explores the complexity of Empire and its legacy, explaining how the Empire was won (not for the squeamish) - in part almost by accident as entrepreneurial chancers like Clive and Rhodes painted the globe red.

The legacy includes a huge foundation of wealth made and repatriated, a language and several sports spanning the globe and a load of brown people who see, or saw, the UK as the homeland (whether the natives saw it that way is another matter).

Even something which is a matter of great pride here - the abolition of slavery - is not a simple matter. Many families and organisations in the UK can trace the beginnings of their wealth to the trade in and exploitation of slaves.

Perhaps the greatest modern legacy of empire is a sense of exceptionalism and entitlement found in many Brits. It was this that contributed greatly to Brexit, a huge disaster for the UK. Culture wars perpetuate the aura of superiority and postpone coming to terms with Empire.

Dean Acheson’s observation that ‘Great Britain has lost an Empire but not yet found a role’ remains as true today as when it was made in 1962. Britain is but a windy archipelago off the north coast of Europe. It has great financial, intellectual and cultural capital, but needs to become comfortable with being a mid ranked power.

For all of its dubious history and complicated inheritance I am extremely grateful that the British Empire existed. Without it it is unlikely that my in laws would have made the journey from Northern India in the 1950s.

[Vartika · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find it astounding how little people in the UK know of colonial history when so much of the country's wealth, power, and politics derives from the legacy of the British Empire. School curricula across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland neglect to even touch upon the lengthy history of imperialism, choosing to dwell instead upon a saturated study of Britain's role in the two World Wars (but omitting how the bulk of it was serviced by forces and resources obtained from its colonies in Asia and Africa).

It is no wonder, then, that Britons are quick to berate the presence of immigrants as 'outsiders' when they were in fact invited to rebuild the country as British citizens, and that a sense of pride about the 'benevolence' of the empire continues to pervade the fabric of the nation—as well as pure colonial apologia, most recently typified by Nigel Biggar in his latest book Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, where he indicts how "the ‘decolonisation’ movement corrodes the West’s self-confidence by retelling the history of European and American colonial dominance as a litany of racism, exploitation, and massively murderous violence," by focusing on its role in abolishing slavery and pushing modernisation (and neatly glossing over the crucial role it played in establishing and sustaining slave trade, which in turn furnished both industrialism and capitalist realism around the globe).

In such a scenario, Sathnam Sanghera's Empireland presents a balanced, incisive, and much-needed telling of the manifold ways in which imperial history has shaped modern Britain: its mobility, its wealth, its public institutions; its contemporary politics, culture, and selective amnesia. Here, the author doesn't set out to condemn the UK as many may assume, or begin with conclusions that it aims to prove. Instead, he describes a journey of education and realisation, and brings out the nuanced and complex details surrounding the contentious issue that is the nature of British Empire. Empireland is, as the blurbs remark, "a vital investigation", "lucid but never simplistic", and written in "the spirit of engaged curiosity rather than didactic declamation" or the binary considerations of 'good' and 'bad.' It is also brilliantly, thoroughly researched with over 80 pages of notes and bibliography, something that is unheard of with a book this slim written outside the academy.

For someone who grew up in South Asia, many of the insights offered in this book are not entirely new to me, but I found Sanghera's coming to terms with them as a British man of Indian ethnicity very refreshing and undeniably important. I particularly liked the precision with which he dismantles the myth of British exceptionalism, especially in matters of slavery, abolition, and the origins of (English) racism, and think it should be mandatory reading for everyone in the country. Empireland's examination of Empire nostalgia as a veritable (and, to me, deeply confounding) industry is also something I greatly appreciated. Consider:

You may have assumed that the East India Company was not a viable brand, considering it stopped existing in a meaningful sense in 1858 following decades of corruption, rebellion and misrule, yet today you can spot its name on shops from Central London to Qatar. Poetically, given that the company's competitive advantages over colonial American tea importers led to the Boston Tea Party, tea is their main offering, including one called Royal Flush, from a bush planted by the Duke of Edinburgh in Ceylon in 1954 and served at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012, alongside other British essentials such as marmalade, digestive biscuits, cordial and nuts enrobed in chocolate. It is hard to conjure up a more ill-judged commercial venture. And it makes no odds that among the commemorative coins on sale there are a couple featuring Gandhi, or that the man heading the business, one Sanjiv Mehta, is Indian-born. In interviews, he has described the Company as 'the Google of its time' (I don't believe that Google has an army) and asserted that the East India Company 'brought the world together' (missing out on the fact that it did so through force). He has also stated that 'the fact that a Indian now owns the East India Company means that the negative has become a positive,' but, you know, it really hasn't.

You may be curious to know what empowers him to write that last phrase—it is all in the book. Read through these twelve brief chapters, and you would agree: it really hasn't.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Often disappointing, but does offer some good analysis amidst this.

Part of this disappointment is my own fault; the book was a gift and I did not research it before reading, so I was expecting a progressive appraisal of imperial legacy by a critical historian. As I quickly found out, Sanghera is not a historian. Perhaps the recommendations all over the cover from right-wing idiots (who like to parade as "centrists", which seems to mean one who tries to downplay their racism while constantly attacking black activists) like James O'Brien and David Baddiel should have warned me. Not that Sanghera seems to quite fit into this brand of toxic discourse, but he does give figures in it far more credence than they deserve (I.e., any). For example, the most referenced historian in the book seems to be the washed up hack Niall Ferguson - a man who fled the (dubious) academic rigour of UK universities to work in the US, where he worked with Republican student groups to harass and intimidate student activists. Sanghera does admit to voting for "all three major parties" at various points, and is apparently woefully ignorant and naive concerning Tory politics (though he does admit that his posh education shaped his previously uncritical view on empire, so presumably it did so for politics). This awkward political position is reflected in his frequent attempts to uplift the positive aspects of empire and shut down any attempt at flatly condemning empire - "it's a complicated history", he cries, even after recounting numerous massacres and genocides. And sure, he's not wrong in highlighting the breadth, variety, and nuance of the British Empire, but he's constantly ceding rhetorical and linguistic ground to racist arguments about positives like the prevalence "ethnic" food balancing out negatives like institutional white supremacy and genocide. These complaints may seem harsh, or concerning the political context of the book rather than the text itself, but I wanted to put them first because they really do visibly shape the arc and arguments within. It's a book that - despite flirting with more meaningful and progressive perspectives (I got briefly excited when the author brought up Edward Saïd, but all Sanghera did was briefly describe Orientalism sheared from Saïd's radical politics) - ultimately supports a curtailed liberal view of history.

The last few chapters are definitely stronger than the first half of the book, helping to lift this review up to 3 stars. His brief explanation of the "culture wars" artificially created by Tory ministers shows insight and his attempts to reconcile his self-perception with the reality of the immense privilige of his education was interesting. But ultimately I'm just not sure this book adds much to the discourse about colonialism. It's kinda needless. There's plenty other books that do what this one is trying to, and plenty that do so with a much clearer view of both the history and politics involved. I've seen the size of Sanghera's bibliography be praised by lots of reviews, but it seemed to me that far too much of it remained undiscussed in the text; while the bibliography itself lacks the depth I'd expect in an academic text, which of course this isn't (histories referenced tending to be popular histories by right-of-centre white men).

Overall, there's 20 page articles that I've read that provide more insight into the workings, history, or legacy of empire than this 232 page book, but if nothing else I guess I'm happy that Sanghera's large audience might be encouraged by it to read other work. Then again, if there's known racism apologists recommending your book - and featured on the cover no less! - then maybe you should rethink what people are really coming away with, and talk about the centrality of white supremacy to the imperial project more explicitly next time.

[Will Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite the very dark subject matter and the occasionally gruesome details, Empireland faces the topic with a tremendous amount of nuance. As pointed out on many pages, discussing the British Empire critically is so often seen as unpatriotic. However the vigorous research that discusses primary and secondary sources is hard to deny. That doesn't mean many won't give it a try.

The optimism displayed by Sanghera in the final chapter about broadening curricula is a tremendously uplifting and energising note. I personally think it's a little naïve and improvements won't come as fast as he thinks, but I am so desperately wishing that I'm proven wrong.

[Jill Nitsche · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating and infuriating how little we acknowledge the reprehensible actions taken in the name of ‘empire’.

[Natasha den Dekker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where was this book when I was at teenager at my boarding school in the noughties? Struggling with my own identity and dealing with comments on my identity from other people. So much of what I've been taught has completely omitted facts FACTS of British history that just aren't taught, celebrated or even shared and I don't know how/why this has happened. It's the same decisions that see us study Florence Nightingale but not Mary Seacole, that see us study all of the Tudor Kings/Queens but not dive into the economic impact of multi-national-acting as a soveriegn the East India Company.

And slavery. Reni Eddo-Lodge spoke about it at length in her book and Sathnam Sanghera does the same. How do we manage to ignore *so fully* the legacy of slavery across all of British Education? That majority of genty in England made their money off the backs of slaves? I mean...it makes sense when it's laid out but I genuinely feel like why didn't I know? Also, why didn't I try to know? Although when it's couched as 'Plantation owneer' or 'West Indies Merchant' what can you do?

This book doesn't give you answers but it does make you question. It definitely fills a *small* hole that is left by a failure of education but it just makes me think of how many gaps we have. England is by no means alone in this - France, America and Holland have very horrible histories of colonialism and slavery to reckon with but we literally just manage to ignore it?!

On a personal level, this book has made me question my understanding of my own identity and where I fit and what labels I have and what labels have been given to me. This should be recommneded reading for everyone IMO.

[Jay Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat underwhelming. No sign of Eric Hobsbawm, Peter Linebaugh or Marcus Rediker in the bibliography. I learned more about empire from Rediker’s The Slave Ship, which deals with one small aspect of empire, than from this historiography (rather than history) of the impact of empire.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fantastic. Being British I of course knew that the Empire had a very bad legacy, and all of the normal things I feel most people think. I had never been invited to think about it in the many ways that Sanghera is able to present. Especially with how some modern things that I must confess I have thought can be traced to a colonial precursor.

Sanghera, while being rightfully indignant at the atrocities committed, does something really well with this that I feel a lot of postcolonial books don’t do: when talking about this from a non-European perspective (He is British, but he uses his family’s Sikh history a lot), he doesn’t shy away from comparison, which while I think intellectually is not needed for any of his points it does help I think with having more people interface with the work, as reading page after page of terrible things our country did can, even if you agree and sympathise, have a fatiguing effect.

Sanghera is also an incredibly lucid, talented, and funny author. His usage of personal anecdotes make it incredibly readable, and I was absolutely afflicted with ‘Just one more chapter’ syndrome. I highly recommend! 4.5 Stars, rounding this one up because I’ll be thinking about it a lot.

[Becki Hills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely essential ready for EVERYONE. Sathnam Sanghera is incredible.

Having only really started learning about the true impact of empire during the BLM protests last summer, it wasn’t until reading this book that I realised how little I really knew. Not only was it unbelievably eye-opening but it was also so engagingly written that it didn’t feel intimidating, like so many historical books.

Cannot recommend it highly enough.

[Cheenu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not British nor have I ever lived in Britain. I only have lived in the US and Canada, two former settler colonies of Britain and live in India, the former "crown jewel" of the erstwhile British Empire.

Hence, I choose this book as I thought it'd be an interesting in-depth exploration of contemporary British society and how its imperial legacy still persists.

However, the book is mostly a meandering litany of assorted colonial atrocities sprinkled with the author's refutations of colonial apologism by contemporary talking heads.

There is very little in the book that explores the connection between the psyche of colonial Britain and modern post-colonial Britain.

While I don't really have a problem with an entire book publicly calling out colonial apologists - there is still the issue of the content isn't what it is says it is on the cover.

Also I think there are many other books with this outline that are much better structured and incisive - such as Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I usually write my reviews (when I do)immediately after I have finished the book when I am still under the emotional influence of its contend. This time I slept over it and I didn’t change my mind. This book is spot on! Last year I read Niall Fergussons Empire and was impressed. We know so little about it and it is so important (reviewing my English studies at university, after I have read some books about Empire, I was shocked to find out that in History we have learned absolutely nothing about it; it was even more shocking to see that in the UK it was even worse)I couldn’t decide though if it was good or bad that Empire happened.
Sathnam Sanghera fortunately says the same thing. And he says many things: he begins listing everyday details which show how present Empire is and goes on checking as many aspects of life in the UK as possible to show that it is neither good or bad but that it is there and that the brits have to deal with it, honestly, courageously and with their sense of fair play!
Politically the UK like in a bit the USA are divided in two blocks and he might represent the liberal or leftist side, he shows however that Empire didn’t have sides it permeated all aspects of life in the UK. Coming to terms with it offers a unique chance to become unique and special. That is his final message and I think his book should inspire all sides.
The amount of work that went in this book seems huge, the bibliography at the end of the book is impressive. However it is not a history book and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read anything yet about Empire. But it is a must if you want to learn and understand Britain nowadays!

[Michael Potts · Rating 3 out of 5]

+ Challenging, confronting read - stirred the emotions. Extensively researched. Thought provoking argument about how the 'empire state of mind' can be traced through to modern Britain. Certain atrocities and injustices of empire are uncomfortable yet unavoidable truths.

- Often feels like the author cherry picks the worst of imperial attitudes and attributes to forcefully apply them to the 21st century political scene. He paints a caricature of 'the other side' without typically offering a full, fair representation of sensible counter arguments. Too often uses Boris Johnson as an example of a Perfectly Normal Representative British Man.

(Slightly grating feature is how the author, justifiably angered by certain racial stereotypes, proceeds to generalise white Brits as narrow-minded, excepionalist, drunk, nationalist, football hooligans who love crap food and all The Bad Things - and I'm only, like, two of those things at most.)

= Mission achieved: to see fingerprints of empire on British culture and attitudes despite an unhelpful, conplete silence on the subject in schools. Unfortunately feels like the author has presented information and counter arguments in an unbalanced, incomplete way, which detracts from valid, powerful points he does make.

[Ameet Shah · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is an interesting book but ultimately unsatisfying. It documents the awakening of Sathnam Sanghera rather than a deep analysis of Empire, its consequences and options to address the past. Prior to writing the book, he was blissfully unaware of the breadth and complexity of empire and all the terrible things done in its name. He clearly loves Britain, and, like a son who loves his father but discovers that he is a serial murderer, we go through all the seasons of his emotions - at one moment totally disgusted with Empire and at another moment seeing the good side of the British. Ultimately he comes to the obvious conclusions. First that the collective amnesia about Empire, we are practising, is a bad thing. Who can argue with that? And second that we need to move past the idea of Britain as a white Christian country; Britain of today, and the Empire of yesterday, are/were both multicultural at their roots. Who can argue with that either? Where he falls down is at the same place as every other similar person - at what to do. He thinks that teaching Empire at school and restitution from museums and a few other items like that would make a material difference. For me, that is deeply unconvincing. Empire may have been one of the causes of racism and British exceptionalism but those now have a life of their own. The Indians have a habit of blaming all their current ills on the British Empire and now, Satnam Sanghera is blaming all the ills of modern Britain on that too. Indians have had plenty of opportunity to transform their own country and, in many ways, they have made as big a mess as the British did. Modern Britain's problems are our own. We need to own it and move forward. I was unsurprised by what he discovered (though learned many new examples) and unconvinced by what he proposed.

[Michael Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

A missed opportunity
I really wanted to enjoy this as it's in my epistemological purview and theres a real insightful book in here. I dont think this book would change the minds of any entrenched imperialists who yearn for days of empire but its probably important that a non-white British voice reflects on those days.
When it's good, it is excellent. I feel like I learnt loads (as somebody who learnt nothing about our empire during my education)...but it cant make its mind up whether it's an analysis of the untold story of the empire or the authors journey discovering these. It suffers from this and starts to drag in places with certain points laboured and others were sprinted passed.

Chapter 11 part way through seemingly either tries to settle scores with, or score points with the no marks (on both sides) who live their lives on Twitter- which will no doubt date the book and felt trivial and off putting compared to the abuses and genocide discussed pages earlier.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Much preferred his other books, this is powerful but patchy. The last 2 chapters are well written, but I got bogged down in the middle of the book where it felt like I was reading a catalogue of disparate facts and the narrative thread went missing.

[Benni Beh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very broad, but still concise book on the cultural influence of the imperial era. Clearly based on a lot (!) of research, but he will quite often run through a lot of 'evidence' in very short order which got a little disorienting and repetitive for me. It didn't really feel that 'eye-opening' to me but maybe that is saying more about my perspective as an outsider than about the book - or rather it is saying a lot about the UK that this book is considered 'eye-opening' (he would agree, I think). I also think that economics are a significant weak spot of the book, the parts on economics are superficial at best (which he kind of acknowledges). Still, it is well worth reading and I think it's quite an achievement to write a book about this that is nuanced, outspoken, entertaining, and educational all at the same time. Will probably read the sequel (Empireworld).

[Iván Mahoney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential reading for anyone interested in History, Politics, or Race (which should cover just about everyone alive). A really balanced book which doesn’t just provide wave after wave of attacks on imperialism (which would be nonetheless justified but potentially less engaging and would make the book more exclusive in its appeal). At one level a lot of what Sanghera suggests is intuitive in terms of improvements, but having a sustained analysis of what is missing and how imperialism has affected modern britain is hugely welcome. It seems to invite a sociologist to explore exactly how the mechanisms of imperial amnesia etc have manifested themselves in the way they did, which I think would be very interesting, but this isn’t to say the book lacks this to its detriment, as Sanghera doesn’t set out to provide an explanation of how these manifested themselves.
Incredible book, really engaging, and evocative.

[Andy Horton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A new and engaging book, by a journalist rather than historian. Sathnam Sanghera and explores how the exploitative and racist history of empire in Britain informs contemporary society, and especially how the myth or story people assume now does not reflect the reality, and how better education and understanding of the past would be a good thing.
As a fellow Wulfrunian, I did smile that in his comments inn the local football stadium being named after a family which profited from slavery he still name-checked “the mighty Wolverhampton Wanderers”.
More seriously, it was interesting seeing his realisation that as a Sikh, many of his cultural assumptions had been set by the British imperial worldview. I’m many way, this was a summary of the book’s theme - the toxic legacy of the past is absorbed unnoticed in our present world view unless we explore and challenge it.

[Simon Linacre · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started this book at the end, looking at the dozens of pages of notes and hundreds of references that formed the basis of this remarkable book. But on top of the huge amount of research, Sathnam Sanghera obviously put a huge amount of himself into this book, laying his soul bare and open to the distressingly predictable racist pile-on he has had to endure since publication. I hope he thinks it was worth it, as I do, as the book not only explodes myths of empire, but engages the reader on a very human level which helps bring the history that do often played out thousands of miles away into our everyday lives. It’s superb.

[Jamie Klingler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know so little about the Empire and Imperialism; this was incredibly readable and interesting without going into excessive detail. Because Sanghera isn't a historian, it's super accessible and amusing at parts. Also, the outpouring of racist hate that has been thrown at Sanghera because of the book basically confirms the hypothesis about the need to honestly examine Britain's past.