Our Island Stories: Country Walks through Colonial Britain

by Corinne Fowler

'This is an essential and fascinating book because it brings to light, through conversations and nature walks, some of the buried connections between Britain’s landscape and historic buildings and its complicated hidden histories. Fowler does not judge or diminish, but enriches and deepens our understanding of this nation' Bernardine Evaristo

'This is real, difficult, essential history delivered in the most eloquent and accessible way. Her case, that rural Britain has been shaped by imperialism, is unanswerable, and she makes her arguments beautifully. An important book' Sathnam Sanghera

'A detailed and thoughtful exploration of historical connections that for too long have been obscured. A powerful book that brings the history of the Empire home – literally' David Olusoga


The countryside is cherished by many Britons. There is a depth of feeling about rural places, the moors and lochs, valleys and mountains, cottages and country houses. Yet the British countryside, so integral to our national identity, is rarely seen as having anything to do with British colonialism. Where the countryside is celebrated, histories of empire are forgotten. In Our Island Stories, historian Corinne Fowler brings rural life and colonial rule together with transformative results. Through ten country walks, roaming the island with varied companions, Fowler combines local and global history, connecting the Cotswolds to Calcutta, Dolgellau to Virginia, and Grasmere to Canton.

Empire transformed rural lives for better and for whether in Welsh sheep farms or Cornish copper mines, it offered both opportunity and exploitation. Fowler shows how the booming profits of overseas colonial activities, and the select few who benefited, directly contributed to enclosure, land clearances and dispossession. These histories, usually considered separately, continue to shape lives across Britain today.

To give an honest account, to offer both affection and criticism, is a matter of we should not knowingly tell half a history. This new knowledge of our island stories, once gained, can only deepen Britons' relationship with their beloved landscape.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Travel, British Literature

419 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 2, 2024

About the author

Corinne Fowler is Professor of Colonialism and Heritage. She specialises in colonial history, decolonisation and the British countryside’s relationship to Empire. Her most recent book is Green Unpleasant Land: Creative Responses to Rural England’s Colonial Connections Peepal Tree Press, 2020). Her forthcoming book is The Countryside: Ten Walks Through Colonial Britain (Penguin Allen Lane, 2023).

Professor Fowler directed a child-led history and writing project called Colonial Countryside: National Trust Houses Reinterpreted (2018-2022, Heritage Lottery and Arts Council). This project was widely covered by the media, including on BBC Radio 4 Front Row, Derby: 300 Years of Making and on ITV News, A Place In The Country: Part 2 - Slave trade legacies | ITV News Central. In 2020 Corinne co-authored an audit of peer-reviewed research about National Trust properties’ connections to empire Colonialism and historic slavery report | National Trust. The report won the Museums and Heritage Special Recognition Award in 2022.

Professor Fowler’s work with the National Trust attracted intense media coverage. There have been over 200 national newspaper articles on the report including in the BBC The National Trust homes where colonial links are 'umbilical' - BBC News, the Guardian I've been unfairly targeted, says academic at heart of National Trust 'woke' row | The National Trust | The Guardian, the Observer, the Telegraph, the Times, the Financial Times, the Express and Mirror. Corinne’s book Green Unpleasant Land was featured in BBC Radio 4 - Thinking Allowed, The Rural Idyll?, BBC Radio 3 New Thinking BBC Radio 3 - Arts & Ideas, New Thinking: Places of Poetry & The Colonial Countryside Project and the New Yorker Britain’s Idyllic Country Houses Reveal a Darker History | The New Yorker. Corinne has also written articles for BBC History Magazine and the Telegraph Let’s not weaponise history: let’s talk about shared histories across generations, cultures and political divides (telegraph.co.uk) to make the case for incorporating colonial history into accounts of British heritage sites. She is regularly interviewed for local and national radio including for James O Brian’s Full Disclosure podcast on LBC Radio Professor Corinne Fowler – Full Disclosure with James O'Brien (uk-podcasts.co.uk). Professor Fowler regularly advises institutions on approaches to decolonisation, sensitive histories and the Culture Wars. She receives frequent speaking invitations and has gained an international platform from which she continues to promote compassionate and collective explorations of sensitive histories across cultures, generations and political divides.

Reviews

[Miles Row · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting book about how various places including rural areas fit into history.

[Barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Corinne Fowler received hate mail and even death threats after the publication of her report "Colonial Countryside: National Trust Houses Reinterpreted" - presumably from people who hadn't read the report and who refuse to accept that much of Britain's private wealth derives from slavery. She is, however, undaunted - and this book is a gem. Eleven walks through the countryside, with companions whose heritage reaches back to people whom Britain enslaved and colonised, open up the untold history of much of rural Britain. And it's not just about those huge houses which were built with the money from "reparation" after the abolition of slavery, or with the wealth accrued during other colonial activities; it's about the radicalism of the weavers in Lancashire, the history of the Wordsworth family, the role of James Watt in copper-mining in Cornwall and thus enabling "copper-bottomed" slave ships to travel faster, the effect of the sugar trade on the island of Jura - and much much more. There is so much to learn from this beautifully written and fascinating book. I will read it again and make notes before returning it to the library, where, I'm glad to see, quite a few others have also reserved it.

[Phil Chamberlain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eleven walks through different rural parts of Britain looking at the colonial resonances that can still be seen in the landscape. From the Welsh wool trade which clothed the enslaved to the Hampshire bankers whose fine houses were built on slave profits.
Fowler is accompanied by people of colour on each journey, bar the last, who add context and insight.
As the conclusion notes, the “dead silence” which greets a question in Austen’s Mansfield Park about slavery in Antigua is similar to the same avoidance which has characterised much our relationship with colonial history.
And as the walks show that relationship is imprinted in so many places.
A great idea with lots to think about - and one people could do themselves with their own colonial walks.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really important book that showcases the way the British Empire is tied to so many parts of rural Britain. It is really interesting piece of public history that shows how imperial and labour history are inextricably linked, from copper mining in Cornwall which played a role in the improvement of colonial ships, to cotton weavers in Lancashire who’s main source of raw cotton came from American plantations. The conversations between walking companions who each had personal connections to British colonialism both centred their experiences growing up in “post-colonial” Britain, and invited open discussions on tough historical topics and events that are necessary for understanding how colonialism altered the British countryside.

[Liberty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely upsetting stuff, obviously.
I appreciated the personal connections that the people the author walked with gave to these stories. And spelling out the links between the treatment of colonised and enslaved people in other countries and the treatment of the working classes in and around the estates of the mostly English aristocracy.

[Rhiannon Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nuanced, thoughtful, not rushed, this book introduces more depth to British history than is usually visible in the countryside. I found the device of walking with a conversation partner really effective in allowing Fowler to consider modern judgements on and the continuing effects of history alongside clear explorations of the facts.

[Brian Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book about Britain's colonial history and how some of the landed gentry have acquired their estates and country houses usually through different aspects of the slave trade . The story is told through 10 walks with different people , which I did not think always worked . Very interesting and thought provoking. The type of book I will probably read again.

[Neha Zadef · Rating 5 out of 5]

corrine fowler = top tier racial ally
loved it & loved all the literary references, especially the wordsworth chapter! healed the child part of me that always loved the countryside but felt like i didn’t have the right to, never quite belonging as much as the others <3

[T_Wragg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommend listening to the audiobook.

[gaverne Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say? This book changed my view of history. Prof Fowler is clearly a genius. Read it to understand what I mean.