Empireland

How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain

By: Sathnam Sanghera

Narrated by: Homer Todiwala

Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2021.

A Sunday Times best seller.

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.

©2021 Sathnam Sanghera (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"This remarkable book shines the brightest of lights into some of the darkest and most misunderstood corners of our shared history." (James O'Brien)

"Lucid but never simplistic; entertaining but never frivolous; intensely readable while always mindful of nuance and complexity - Empireland takes a perfectly-judged approach to its contentious but necessary subject." (Jonathan Coe)