“In the twenty-first century we can end the vicious dog-eat-dog economy in which the vast majority struggle to survive,” writes Sanders, “while a handful of billionaires have more wealth than they could spend in a thousand lifetimes.” With that statement, the author updates an argument as old as Marx and Proudhon. The sun may have set on the British Empire, but this piercing examination of its legacies is thoroughly timely.Įveryone’s favorite avuncular socialist sends up a rousing call to remake the American way of doing business. Readers whose familiarity with British history and culture is not acute may find themselves reaching for external context at times, but Sanghera’s exploration of the topic is consistently lively and just as often laugh-out-loud funny as it is deeply painful. The author frequently strings lists of names or facts into single, long sentences, accreting evidence for his argument that, say, Britain has been multicultural for centuries in a way that is hard to deny-and when he uses the same rhetorical device in his unexpectedly optimistic conclusion, it’s equally effective. Observing that much British conversation about empire has been binary-“a veritable industrial oven of hot potatoes”-he pleads for a nuanced view of Britain’s “difficult history.” Acknowledging that his “quintessentially British” education “encouraged me to view my Indian heritage through patronizing Western eyes,” he nevertheless loves the nation, even though immigrants are endlessly instructed to integrate.” It is, as he points out passionately, his home.

Drawing from sources as varied as Jan Morris, Edward Said, and Twitter, Sanghera moves elegantly through one legacy to the next, frequently opposing imperial apologists against detractors. in 2021) with a note to American readers: “The contention that the War of Independence marked a total rejection of the British Empire is the historical equivalent of a teenager leaving home and declaring that his parents had nothing to do with shaping him.” Indeed, American readers will find much that’s familiar in the account that follows, in which the author probes Britain’s imperial history to find its present-day influences-which are everywhere: in Britain’s monuments and museums, education system, multiculturalism, racism, even its trash TV.

edition (the book was published in the U.K. A British Sikh journalist and documentarian probes the lasting effects of “one of the biggest white supremacist enterprises in the history of humanity.”

Sanghera empireland