Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire

by Kojo Koram

Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing
Longlisted for the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding
A Guardian Book of the Year

'Brilliantly arranged and rich with fresh insights' Akala

'A radical, beautifully written understanding of our history' Owen Jones

'You can't understand how Britain works today without reading it' Frankie Boyle

'A challenge to a nation living in the shadow of empire: reckon with your imperial past, or it will come back to bite you' Grace Blakeley

'This book should be part of the national curriculum' Ellie Mae O'Hagan

Britain didn't just put the empire back the way it had found it.

In Uncommon Wealth , Kojo Koram traces the tale of how after the end of the British empire an interconnected group of well-heeled British intellectuals, politicians, accountants and lawyers offshored their capital, seized assets and saddled debt in former 'dependencies'. This enabled horrific inequality across the globe as ruthless capitalists profited and ordinary people across Britain's former territories in colonial Africa, Asia and the Caribbean were trapped in poverty. However, the reinforcement of capitalist power across the world also ricocheted back home. Now it has left many Britons wondering where their own sovereignty and prosperity has gone...

Decolonisation was not just a trendy buzzword. It was one of the great global changes of the past hundred years, yet Britain - the protagonist in the whole, messy drama - has forgotten it was ever even there. A blistering uncovering of the scandal of Britain's disastrous treatment of independent countries after empire, Uncommon Wealth shows the decisions of decades past are contributing to the forces that are breaking Britain today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Economics, Social Justice, British Literature, History and Politics

304 pages, Hardcover

First published July 19, 2022

Reviews

[BookOfCinz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw the author Kojo Koram speak at Ake Literary Festival and I had to get a copy of his book. This is what I call required reading. Koram does an exceptional job of showcasing how Britain continues to use captialism to exploit other countries. It was in read this book that I learnt about how British Petroluem came to be and how to this day Britian benefits from them as a company.

I particularly enjoyed the chapter about Jamaica, the IMF, Manley. If you love history, if you are curious about the British empire continues to empire, I highly recommend reading this.

I will say, the book can read a bit academic at times, but if you push pass that, you will learn a lot.

[Amit Sin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Could not put this down. Kojo takes the reader on a journey through time and space. Not only is this incredibly informative, but it is beautifully written. Weaving in personal stories from Koram's time in Ghana, Koram brilliantly connects history to the present in ways that would leave any reader dismayed at the injustices of empire and its lingering aftermath.

[KT · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent read on the effects of the British Empire on its colonies, especially its enduring effects that benefits imperialists and is a cost to former colonies, however I felt the book could have done better tying the effects together and chapters felt too disjointed both within the themes (state, company, border, debt, tax, and city) and connecting them

Highlights from the book included:
Calling attention to the philanthropy of colonial companies being a necessary requirement for them to be incorporated and thus exist. Thus the origins of philanthropy such as corporate social responsibility and performing social good to balance out harmful activities is rooted in it being a necessary condition to exploit the colonies and the colonised

Tracing the death of the British Empire and how the baton was passed to the USA during the Suez crisis

The criticism of the liberal value of private property and how it overlooks the various forms of property tenure and use that indigenous communities across the world practised before colonisation, while being used to impoverish and dispossess people through slavery, land appropriation and gentrification

[Sasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book really helped to clarify what I knew and offer further insight into the way the legacy of empire is the capitalist system we live in today, as well as equip me with specific examples for using in any debate. it was deeply depressing in the repeating story of attempts and failures to make a better world, but definitely a worthwhile read and pretty accessible - not too difficult to understand and offering enough background information so you don't feel lost.

[Keenan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A multifaceted look at the ways the institutions, laws, and beliefs that made up the nucleus of the British Empire have continued to reverberate in the present day, both in the decolonized Third World and in a boomerang fashion the UK itself. We learn about the colonial-minded politicians who helped usher in a new economic order where capital travels freely across borders and the fruits of exploitation can be stored away from grabby hands into offshore coffers. We learn how the legal and financial incentives used to build up the Empire remained in place to the present day and have helped to lead the UK into being one of the most unequal countries in Western Europe. Faced with health and unemployment and inequality crises, even the reaction of the government to blame immigrants and coloured people finds its roots in a nation designed in its origin story to profit maximally off its citizens.

While the book can feel scattered at times with all the information getting packed in, this book is undoubtedly an incisive look into the non-cultural aspects of the vestiges of empire and decolonization, and it brought together for me bits and pieces of knowledge I never really appreciated were connected before.

[thibagaran · Rating 5 out of 5]

The solution to racism is not to ignore racism. Modern day imagining of poverty as a natural disaster like event is evidence of how warped our education system is.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly well written, researched and presented book, read for a book club and it was both greatly informative and a great source of conversation HIGHLY RECC

[Maisie Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hated this book because it is so frustrating. I want everyone to read it.

[Lydia Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

took me a year , might start from the beginning again , so interesting

[Fionn McGorry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really excellent. If anything the title is misleading - it’s about the long shadow of the empire and the ongoing legal and institutional drivers of neoimperialism

[Snorre Lothar von Gohren Edwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's alot about the UK. The reason it got 3 stars was because it hold alot of info on how the UK empire affected the world.

[Ajay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was deeply impressed by Uncommon Wealth. Kojo Karam has captured in essence the most important narrative of our times -- the aftermath of empires. Instead of describing the legacy of a distant past, Kojo shows us the impact today on global economics, ideologies, and politics. His tour takes us to a Jamaica forced into austerity and privatization by international debtors, a newly independent Ghana where sovereignty clashes with the interests of transnational corporations, and a rising Singapore built on authoritarianism, transnational corporations, and government intervention.

From the offshore tax havens of the Cayman Islands to the rising inequality of the developed world -- Kojo makes the articulate case that what we are seeing today is the boomerang returning home.

I'd add to this that in a post-communism world, global elites have a greater freedom to profit from exploitation without ideological challenge -- as Margret Thatcher said "there is no alternative".

However, the most admirable aspect of this book is that Kojo makes clear that there is an alternative. Everyone has a role to play in this -- and this book's conclusions guides us to what the UK can and should do to build a better system.

This entire book is filled with powerful stories, a few highlights:
- Singapore's rise -- deeply insightful take of the story. I knew about Lee Kuan Yew, but hadn't heard as much about other key figures e.g. Sinnathamby Rajaratnam
- Enoch Powell -- I only vaguely knew him as a racist UK politician; was great to get some context on who he was and how he changed over time from imperialist to empire-amnesiac
- A take of the UK culture war which stresses how certain debates (like whether or not to toppling a statue of a slave trader) may have symbolic value, but don't come close to dealing with the true aftermath of empire.

The book also inspires lots of further reading -- will be mining Kojo's bibliography!

[Supinder · Rating 3 out of 5]

A selective whistle-stop tour through British decolonisation from Empire. The book considers the attitudes of critical politicians of the era such as Enoch Powell and Keith Joseph and their contributions to the current political and economic environment in the UK now finds itself in. The book is interspersed with potted histories of the decolonisation experience, principally Ghana and Jamacia.

An informative book that does an excellent job of widening the aperture of the decolonisation experience. The synthesis of the age of Empire through to Brexit and the 2008 Great Financial Crash is interesting.

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

To suggest that the relationships between Britain and its Empire are complex is to make a huge understatement. In less than 20 years in the immediate wake of World War 2 that portion of the world map coloured ‘red’ – in my childhood and for many before me the marker of empire – shrunk, leaving the scattered remnants of a few islands and territories, many of which gained independence in the decade that followed. Or, at least, as with most of the rest of that empire they gained flag independence. Social, cultural and economic distinctiveness was a different story.

Although opening with an anecdote of his Ghanaian-resident grandfather’s continuing performance of an archaic form of Britishness – marked by the BBC World Service, the Mini, and breakfast – Koram does not fall into the trap of seeing the reside of Empire in British-ness in its former territories, or of Britain-at-home’s denial of Empire. This is a more subtle and more complex exploration of a dialogic relationships between the empire-that-was and practice during and since. Using a metaphor of the boomerang, Koram unpacks the presence of the practices of Empire, before and after flag independence, in the post-imperial British state.

So this is a story debt and tax havens, borders and the free movement of capital, the imperial outpost and the militarised state, of free trade zones and segregated housing, of sovereignty, the New International Economic Order, and the corporate city state. The Caribbean, that section of Britain most integrated into its formation and most denied in its presence looms large – in the 80 years since the publication of Eric Williams’ essential Capitalism and Slavery the Caribbean’s fundamental role in British power has been clear to, and clearly ignored by, most. Koram’s focus on the region considers, for instance, both the efforts to continue to assert control, such as by the actions taken to destroy efforts to build a NIEO, led by among others Jamaica’s Michael Manly, and the development and protection in Caribbean states of tax havens – making the region a place of ensured debt dependency for the poor and wealth protection for the obscenely rich.

Elsewhere and throughout he explores the deeply embedded character of neo-liberal ideology as woven into the British state, suggesting but not explicitly exploring the shift from a mercantilist empire of extraction and trade to an empire of finance, and the shift from manufacturing to finance capital. A little more consideration of this might have helped make clearer the process by which the fantasies of sovereignty have shaped the post-imperial British state – that they did so is clear in the analysis, how they did so is less clear, but that might be a different book. We do see these fantasies clearly in Brexit and the rhetoric of Singapore on the Thames, an image Koram unpacks fruitfully and eloquently in his exploration of the discourse of the global city.

This is not a linear narrative but a thematic analysis built around six themes – the state, the company, borders, debt, tax, and the city – in a way that makes old connections apparent in new ways and new insights sharp. It is a history of ideas and their practice, making it both a cultural and intellectual history as well as carefully crafted unpicking of the traces and residues of empire, and the exchange between empire’s former outposts and British power and institutions. In a sense, it takes the old adage that ‘we are here because you were there’ and reminds us that it’s not past tense. And that makes it all the more important.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a strong introductory work on how empire persisted after formal decolonization, under the hegemony of the financial sector in the Global North and a set of enabling institutions. Koram's strongest achievement here is to demonstrate quite irrefutably that "race" in the present day is a system of economic domination created by post-colonial networks of financial capitalism, not some free-floating ideological construct as liberals would have it and certainly not something "natural" as conservatives would have it.

To me, the strongest chapters were "The Border" and "The Debt". In the former we get a story that shows how migrants from Britain's colonial possessions immediately after World War II (the "Windrush Generation") confronted rampant discrimination on the order of American Jim Crow, requiring state intervention in the form of a pair of "Race Relations Acts". Once this was accomplished, however, the government resorted to immigration and citizenship policy strongly favoring recent descendants of people born in the UK -- essentially a grandfather clause to limit migration from former colonies and protect expropriated wealth using national borders. This program lives on in ever-tightening immigration restrictions in the wake of Brexit, including a brutal deportation regime that has even swept up some of the original post-war colonial migrants (who were at the time citizens of the British empire).

In "The Debt" we get the counterpoint to this story: as borders became ever tighter, restrictions on the flows of debt and assets became ever looser through Thatcher's and Reagan's program of financial deregulation. In a striking illustration of this contrast, the Tory imperialist Enoch Powell, who famously announced that "rivers of blood" would flow if postcolonial migrants entered the UK, is shown to have (less famously) denounced the fixed currency exchange rates of his day as a dangerous form of creeping socialism in a speech to the neoliberal Mont Pelerin Society. An increasingly liberalized financial system confronted postcolonial leaders like Jamaica's Michael Manley, who began his career by calling for a "New International Economic Order" that would develop postcolonial nations through coordinated trade activity, but later acquiesced to IMF-enforced spending cuts when it became clear that western capital would simply withdraw entirely if it did not dictate its own terms for the repayment of debt.

Of the rest of the book, "The Tax" is probably the most interesting, covering the development of British overseas territories like the Cayman islands into "tax havens". Governed largely by settlers, these jurisdictions remained legally British after decolonization, retaining the UK's "Privy Council" as their highest court and the monarch as their head of state, but also use their significant local autonomy to create favorable tax, regulatory, and (non-)transparency conditions to shelter the assets of the world's richest.

Overall, I'm glad this book exists. It could use more detail and development of some of its points, and as an American I often found myself wanting to better understand the context of some things that seemed to be presented as common sense but felt unfamiliar to me. But I learned quite a bit from it, and Koram is a good writer with what feels to me like a sound political outlook. He wants his readers to understand that the UK's overgrown financial sector is as much a threat to all Britons as it is to its former colonial possessions, and I think he's done about as good a job at that as one could.

[Jungian.Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Employing Cesaire's concept of the boomerang, Koram describes how the mechanisms of exploitation i.e., the legal & economic structures set up during colonial times have come back to hit Britain in the face, as evidenced by the disastrous impact of outsourcing state functions to private corporation, just as they outsourced the business of empire to private companies.

Below I describe briefly the main focus of each chapter;

The State - Here Koram focuses on the failed attempt by the British West African colonies to demand self-governance after following the first world war. Kojo highlights the disastrous effects of the UK outsourcing of state function to private corporation by tracing these predatory relationship back to when the work of empire was outsourced to private companies ("From the sixteen-century Levant Company to the Royal Niger Company of the late nineteenth century, much of the dirty work of actually administrating Britain's vast empire was outsourced to private corporations"), and the corruption at the heart of British politics and empire. He briefly explores the role of the English legal system (property law) in entrenching policies that places property ownership over national interest and how this interferes with resource extraction in newly independent states, as he later discusses with AIOC role in collapsing the nationalization of oil mining in Iran

The Company - Starting with the AIOC, Kojo describes the role AIOC (British Petroleum) & the British government in collaboration with the US played in the coup that ousted Mosaddegh's government. A government whose policy would have nationalized the oil fields which AIOC had laid claims to. The action obviously bit Britain in the ass, as this collaboration further entrenched the US in the region resulting in Britain losing its monopoly of mining in the region. Kojo turns a lens to Ghana & Nkrumah path to independence, the issues with English property law and the boomerang effect of 'corporatization'.

The Border - Here Kojo explores the impact of Britain's colonial past on its current immigration policies. He examines how historical border control (with a focus on the windrush generation, Indian's who fought for the British in second world war), and the citizenry of the crown colonies. Kojo highlights the impact of current immigration policies on social services in the UK, as well as the complexities and injustice embedded in the system.

The Debt - Here Kojo focuses on the economic exploitation that was the building blocks of empire. the exploitation of colonies via resources extraction and labour via slavery that created vast debts and negative capital in the newly independent states, hindering their economic development. The financial systems like the IMF, and the World Bank are systems that contribute to global economic inequalities via their debt structures.

Mini thought - For African countries to pay off their debt without ruining their citizens via austerity measures, they need to have control of their capital (i.e. resources). They however do not have any as it has been stolen (during old age colonialism) and continues to be siphoned off through private corporations. Let's also not forget that some of these countries are still (some up to recently) paying off their former colonial masters through colonial tax.

The Tax - Here Kojo focuses on the rise and popularity of Tax havens, as well as the laws that enable private corporations to escape paying taxes. Kojo argues that these practices have roots in colonial exploitation, as these tax havens often are British colonies. He describes the government lackadaisical attitude when it comes to addressing the offshoring of wealth to its colonies. He discuss how the

The City - The city of London wants to be like Singapore but the government of Singapore have more reigns on their 'free markers' and actually own percentage shares in the companies managing state infrastructure and services unlike the UK. In this chapter, Kojo examines the impact of colonialism and imperialism on the city's financial practices. He discusses the inequalities that can be observed in the city and the power it has over world financial markets.

Overall, I thought the book was very educative and eye-opening.

[YJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m holding a mixed feeling to this book after reading.
This book did a thorough field study and provided a lot of supportive research and statistics regarding the aftermath of British Empire comparing to other books purely advocating but lack of evidence. However, the chapters are loosely structured without strong links between different arguments, making me hard to follow the author’s logics from the beginning to the end. The author tried to touch the aftermath from several aspects - the nation states, international corporations, debts and taxs, cities with different fates - but the topics seem to be too broad for the author to perfectly handle, thus bringing some arguments not focused enough or too far-fetched.
Besides, I assume the target audiences of this book to be people interested in the context behind the decolonisation and how the current Britain is formed because of the decolonisation. Some might be clueless of what to expect from the book, but there should be a group of audiences seeking to get more discussion on “how we can fix the injustice with movable steps and long-term practical solutions”. As a reader for the latter, I am disappointed that the author focused more on calling out the fault but less on what we can do to survive in capitalism but gradually regain some degrees of justice in long term (for example, the government should start investing on certain industries strongly performing in the current market to avoid the British economy overly relying on Financial industry). I expected more discussion being launched in the last chapter “There is an alternative” outside of the blames, but I did not find new inspiration after reading the book.

In general, this book is still a good read for those who have never thought about how Britain reaches its current status or what those pre-colonised countries have been through after the decolonisation. However, for people already aware of some or all of the above, the book might be a good one to provide more historical context but not to bring new inspiration to the audiences.

[Justin Evans · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps the most 'written in 2020' book I've come across so far; out of a series of books about, roughly, how our world has been shaped by bad things in history (see also: Abrahamian's excellent 'Hidden Globe'), this isn't the best. Maybe the problem is that I'm reading it in the US, as an Australian citizen, so I'm fairly familiar with the shadiness of the British Empire (i.e., I exist because of that shadiness), and not especially impressed with current British evil (as I write this, the president of the US is sending the National Guard into my (don't call it a) state to... I don't know, just intimidate people who don't vote for him. That's to say, I might not be the target market here. If you're a Brit, and don't know about the history of empire, and don't read the paper very much, you might get some good facts out of this. And if you somehow believe that the empire was a good thing, *and* pick up a book like this, you should have enough information to get over your false belief. Of course, this book is preaching to the choir, so that's unlikely. Empire was bad because it was unjust, murderous, racist, and exploitative; you can get that from such wild-eyed radicals as EM Forster and Joseph Conrad.

This book, unfortunately, is not very well organized, and it's pretty tendentious a lot of the time. That a bad thing happened during the period of empire, and that that bad thing is still having bad effects, doesn't mean 'empire' *caused* the bad thing in the present. That doesn't mean the bad things aren't bad. It just means we can criticize them on their own merits, without tying a whole bunch of disconnected bad things together.

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many non-fiction works unfortunately go in one ear and out the other for me because there is so much to take in. Somehow Kojo Koram sets out his arguments in “Uncommon Wealth” in such a way that I felt like I was getting a history and politics lesson from a really good teacher: lessons that stayed with me well after closing the book. Using each chapter to unravel Britain’s shameful relationship to one of its colonies, both during and in the aftermath of empire, Koram shows us that the idea of “sovereignty” for these countries means very little when they are inevitably faced with the economic doctrine of neoliberalism.

Importantly, Koram shows how ongoing struggles in former colonies, whether this be the repercussions of structural adjustment programmes, economic free fall caused by unfettered capitalism in Singapore or the shameless greed enabled by tax havens in British territories, are all inextricably linked to the ills faced by people in Britain itself. Austerity, archaic and undemocratic political powers in the City of London and never ending tax evasion by the rich are all decimating public services and the working class right here in Britain. Holding the British establishment accountable for historic wrongs to countries who suffered at the hands of British Empire is no longer just a necessity in order to right the wrongs of old: it is a necessity to balance the very forces that continue to destroy people and planet in the present day.

[Sagar Gupta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was a pretty decent account of decolonisation and it’s present day impact on British society. The conceit of the novel is fascinating: a so called ‘boomerang effect’ described by Cesaire, brings back ideas that were once exported to the empire back to Britain. It explains how the empire’s greatest achievement was not in the ‘railways’ but more the ability create institutions (law, tax free zones) that protect property. Kojo is a compelling writer: he doesn’t drown in personal anecdote (eg Akala) but captures lots of subtle nuance that resonated with me as a 2nd generation immigrant.

My only gripes are that the argument feels a little forced at times. Sure, while the boomerang effect is fascinating, I don’t think it’s adequately explains the similarities of problems. Perhaps this is my own flawed understanding, but I think the more relevant point is that decolonisation was but in name, corporate power remained and Britain benefitted from it. In a way, many societies are going through their own ‘decolonisation’ and the extreme control of corporations will lead to similar outcomes.

Anyway, this was a fresh perspective and led me to valuable insights on Nkrumah, Manley and Lee Kuan Yew. It’s well researched and an important contribution in the populist left wing canon.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

The British Empire we often talk about today is considered something distant and of little relevance in our current times. Indeed, there is much amnesia in society to the point where some have claimed that Britain never had an empire.

In "Uncommon Wealth", Kojo Koram reveals that while the Empire disappeared in name, many of the instruments devised during its time have impacted the lives of those living in Britain in the 21st Century. And we are not just talking about those from the former colonies.

The author finds the development of commercial corporations, the free market, debt as a means of control, freeports, tax havens to offshore wealth, financialisation, non-domiciled registration and more, which came about during the British Empire, are very much part of our modern life and continue to provide channels to allow the wealthy to stay rich at the expense of most of society. He even highlights the vision of the leading Brexiters of Britain with, among other things, even fewer regulations that would aid the accumulation and movement of wealth for a few.

This well-written book shows how global economics have come to affect our lives in Britain today through things like wealth inequality - recommended reading.

[J T · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire, Kojo Koram takes the long perspective on the accumulation of post- empire offshore assets and the often arcane process of how this was achieved, much of it surviving to this day. Coupled with the brutal suppression that often came when these former territories, some highly resource rich in their own right, attempted to break the empiric yoke, gain independence from their colonial pasts and forge a prosperous future by governing their own affairs. We find the rise of the corporations and their immense power at the very heart of this turbulent mix of commerce. politics, desires for nationhood and outright greed.
The reason I enjoyed this book so much is the clear amount of time, attention to historic detail, research and effort that power the narrative.

[Jeanette Petersson Munro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent information about relation between the British Empire and Offshoring of money by the wealth and coorporations to avoid tax. The damage done to nations emerging for colonialism by the majority become debt-ridden due to the way the global economy is set up is illustrated but also to ordinary people, without access to offshoring, who do pay tax and see untaxed profits being suck out of their countries which should be used for infrastructure such as health care and education.

[Daniel Clemence · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing overview of the post-colonial settlement between the UK and Commonwealth. It looks over subjects such as UK corruption, Enoch Powell, Iran, Jamaica as well as the myth of Singapore.

I think that the book really goes into the elitism of the British Empire and in some ways explains why Britain is so dysfunctional. It also shows the negative effects of Neo-Liberalism as well and how austerity was imposed on post-colonial countries.

[Jenny Mace · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible book. The link and progression from imperial rule through to post colonial corporate exploitation on a global scale is brilliantly described. I would recommend this book for everyone who has missed out on an education around the impact of the commonwealth (which is pretty much everyone, as this stuff is NOT on the syllabus). It is also witty, entertaining and absorbing - so very easy to engage with.

[Nick Heim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty good book for understanding the economics of the imperial system. My only criticism is how bias and one sided it is. It comes across downright preachy at some points.

However, it is very well thought out and researched. I recommended it to several people. It has some dry spots but the information is definitely worth it.

[Roland Glotzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very informative in making the link between the old British Empire, colonialism (and slavery) and the development of capitalism which made London a major financial centre. It also makes clear why some financiers like Banks financially supported the Brexit campaign.

[Denis Southall · Rating 3 out of 5]

On how the British Empire and it's legacy created racialised, financialised capitalism and the vestiges, whilst conveniently 'forgotten' are still at the heart of the system that works for the few whilst destroying the planet.

[Michael C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant! Kojo Karam has a rare writing style that is clear and succinct. The amount of information packed into this relatively short work is extraordinary. It is my opinion that this book should be required reading for every student in the US and the UK.

[Woj]

It is well written. It is easy to understand, yet it talks about complex historical reality. Sometimes I feel that the resolution of the left perspective is not dense enough to explain globalization. At the same time, the author gives many clues, allowing us to understand our present better.