Black and British: A Forgotten History

Description

A Waterstones History Book of the Year Longlisted for the Orwell Prize Shortlisted for the inaugural Jhalak Prize A vital re-examination of a shared history, published to accompany the landmark BBC Two series. In Black and British, award-winning historian and broadcaster David Olusoga offers readers a rich and revealing exploration of the extraordinarily long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa. Drawing on new genetic and genealogical research, original records, expert testimony and contemporary interviews, Black and British reaches back to Roman Britain, the medieval imagination and Shakespeare's Othello. It reveals that behind the South Sea Bubble was Britain's global slave-trading empire and that much of the great industrial boom of the nineteenth century was built on American slavery. It shows that black Britons fought at Trafalgar and in the trenches of the First World War. Black British history can be read in stately homes, street names, statues and memorials across Britain and is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation. Unflinching, confronting taboos and revealing hitherto unknown scandals, Olusoga describes how black and white Britons have been intimately entwined for centuries.

David Olusoga is a British-Nigerian historian, broadcaster and BAFTA award-winning presenter and filmmaker. His previous books include The Kaiser's Holocaust and The World's War. He was also a contributor to The Oxford Companion to Black British History.

You could not ask for a more judicious, comprehensive and highly readable survey of a part of British history that has been so long overlooked or denied. David Olusoga, in keeping with the high standards of his earlier books, is a superb guide. -- Adam Hochschild Groundbreaking. * Observer * [A] comprehensive and important history of black Britain . . . Written with a wonderful clarity of style and with great force and passion. It is thoroughly researched and there are many interesting anecdotes. -- Kwasi Kwarteng * The Sunday Times * A radical reappraisal of the parameters of history, exposing lacunae in the nation's version of its past. -- Arifa Akbar * Guardian * A thrilling tale of excavation -- Colin Grant * Guardian * [Olusoga] has discovered new and exciting research materials [which] give his writing freshness, originality and compassion . . . [Black and British] will inspire and will come to be seen as a major effort to address one of the greatest silences in British historiography * New Statesman * Lucid and accessible. * Herald Scotland * Olusoga's account challenges narrow visions of Britain's past. By tracing the triangulated connections between Britain, America and Africa, he presents black British history in global terms [...] His subjects, even those who barely figure in the historical record, appear as individuals who matter, both in their own right and as historical exemplars. * The London Review of Books * An insightful, inclusive history of black people in Britain . . . Rich in detail and packed with strong personalities, this is an important contribution to our understanding of life in the UK. * History Revealed * Ambitious . . . Long overdue -- Hakim Adi * Spectator * An insightful, inclusive history of black people in Britain which is rich in detail and packed with strong, interesting characters. -- Stephanie Yeboah * GQ *