Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain

by Sathnam Sanghera

Empire explains the global pretensions of our Foreign and Defence secretaries. Empire explains the feeling that we are exceptional and can go it alone when it comes to everything from Brexit to dealing with global pandemics. Empire helped to establish the position of the City of London as one of the world’s major financial centres, and also ensures that the interests of finance trump the interests of so many other groups in the twenty-first century. Empire explains how some of our richest families and institutions and cities became wealthy. Empire explains our particular brand of racism, it explains our distrust of cleverness, our propensity for jingoism. Let’s face it, imperialism is not something that can be erased with a few statues being torn down or a few institutions facing up to their dark pasts or a few accomplished individuals declining an OBE; it exists as a legacy in my very being and, more widely, explains nothing less than who we are as a nation.