This Land of Promise: A History of Refugees and Exiles in Britain

A History of Refugees and Exiles in Britain

De: Matthew Lockwood

Narrado por: Mark Meadows

‘Important, comprehensive, and superbly researched. All the more urgent at the present time’ BART VAN ES

'A terrific, clear-eyed and balanced history that cuts through today’s toxic debates' DAILY TELEGRAPH

How have those who arrived on Britain’s shores shaped its history?

Refugees seeking to reach Britain today often face perilous journeys, impossible bureaucracy and acidic public opinion. But this hasn’t always been the way. For most of our history, Great Britain cherished its outward image as a safe haven for those displaced by religious persecution, political violence or economic crisis – an island of stability in the midst of a violent world.

In This Land of Promise, migration scholar Matthew Lockwood overturns many popular modern-day misconceptions about Britain’s history of immigration. Exiles and refugees have been not only a constant presence in Britain across the centuries but also intrinsic to shaping Britain as it is today. This is a profoundly moving and illuminating history, told through the people who lived it: Frederick Douglass and the formerly enslaved men who followed in his footsteps, fleeing America on the hopes of kinder cultures. Little girls like Liesl Ornstein, who discovered they were Jewish only when Hitler took Austria, who were sent to England and told to call themselves ‘Elizabeth’. Sun Yat-sen, who found sanctuary in London – a brief abduction aside – before becoming the father of modern China. Freddie Mercury, who at every turn tried to shake Zanzibar from his bones.

Almost every time, we see when we look back, Britain has not been an island refuge from the world, but an island refuge for the world. Not a country burdened by refugees, but instead transformed and strengthened by them.

©2024 Matthew Lockwood (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

Reseñas de la Crítica

‘A terrific, clear-eyed and balanced history that cuts through today’s toxic debates… a very fine book that puts the current crisis, with all its complexities, into a longer perspective. Matthew Lockwood is not a tub-thumper or an ideologue but an enthralling story-teller… he keeps the focus on human individuals, taking five centuries of passages from violent persecution and extreme deprivation as the context… Lockwood writes a vivid, fluent prose and moves all these remarkable tales along at a cracking pace’

Daily Telegraph, five-star review

‘Compelling and humane… analyses some misconceptions about Britain’s history of immigration. We have a laudable past as a haven country – which Lockwood details in an accounts going back to 1695’

Independent, Top Reads for June

‘Vividly told, panoramic history of 1,000 years of Britain as the ‘asylum capital of the world’… Lockwood has a keen eye for irony and the moral dilemmas of history… this really is a brilliant book – topical, profound, deeply researched and in places beautifully written. For anyone who wants a broad historical perspective on today’s great ethical/political/environmental question, this is as good a place as any to start… Lockwood is excellent at finding powerful and entertaining characters to make his points’

Spectator

‘Important, comprehensive, and superbly researched. All the more urgent at the present time’

Bart Van Es