Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain

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Description

Imperial Island is a major new revisionist history that challenges traditional narratives of the last seventy-five years of British history. It will show how Britain continued to be an imperial nation even after the official dissolution of its empire, and how this has profoundly shaped British culture, politics and society from the Second World War to the present. Retelling for a new generation the story of post-war immigration and decolonisation, from the Suez Crisis to the Falklands, from the Notting Hill Riots to the Tebbit Test, from the rise of the British Black Power movement to Band Aid and the Windrush Scandal, Imperial Island will show how imperialism has left a legacy of racism, violence and jingoism in Britain that persists to the present, providing an alternative view of our past that helps explain the contemporary upheaval of Brexit. Giving voice to ordinary British people throughout, it will describe the effect on Britain of its slide from imperial 'glory' to a more limited role on the world stage and how the idea of being British has shifted accordingly.

Author Bio

Charlotte Lydia Riley is a lecturer in twentieth-century British history at the University of Southampton, whose writing has appeared in New Statesman, Prospect, Dazed, New Humanist, Popula, Progressive Review, History Today and the BBC World Histories magazine. She co-hosts a podcast, Tomorrow Never Knows, in which she and Emma Lundin discuss feminism, pop culture, politics and history. Her Twitter feed @lottelydia has almost 35,000 followers, and she writes a regular column in Tribune about modern history, British identity and the left. She has a doctorate from UCL and taught previously at LSE and the University of York.