A review by zalamaan
Empireland, by Sathnam Sanghera
3.0
The Book in Three Sentences
1 The British empire is not talked about enough in Britain today, and what is talked about are the good parts.
2. Lasting effects of empire include things like immigrants from colonies still feeling not part of the system due to racism, politicians wanting to keep the privilege of being an imperial power without the backlash, and people from colonies still identifying with traits made for them by the ruling powers to keep them in check (Sikh warrior race for example).
3. Arguing about what it is to be British is dumb, since the empire brought in peoples from all over. Street food in England has Indian influences, etc.
Impressions
The book talked a lot about things that I though most people would already know. The empire wasn't great for the people of the colonies, specifically people with different looks/skin colour. I'm not sure if I already knew this stuff because of my own bubble or if the author is oblivious to what most people believe. Although it is a good book, it seems fairly self-evident to anyone not white and sheltered and from a small town. I would've liked more detail on most of what he talked about. Every time he got to a good part in the chapter, I'd realize there was one or two pages left in it and he would start summing up/winding down.
I was interested to find out that although the abolition of slavery was led by the British, they also were the top earners from it first. Also, during abolition, the government paid the ex slave-owners for any 'property' and money they would have lost because of it. Meanwhile, former enslaved people got nothing.
How I Discovered It
It was discussed on Reddit and Twitter right after the Queen died. When people would come out and defend against others bashing her right after her death, others would point to this book to explain why the empire was bad for a whole lot of people.
Who Should Read It?
Anyone who still believes that the British empire was good for humanity overall. Anyone parroting the fact that the English abolished slavery as if that's all that mattered. Most of the left-leaning younger generation wouldn't need to, I think.
How The Book Changed Me
- Not much honestly, a lot of the information I had already known.
- Good to have a simple book to point to if someone asks
My Top Three Quotes
1 The British empire is not talked about enough in Britain today, and what is talked about are the good parts.
2. Lasting effects of empire include things like immigrants from colonies still feeling not part of the system due to racism, politicians wanting to keep the privilege of being an imperial power without the backlash, and people from colonies still identifying with traits made for them by the ruling powers to keep them in check (Sikh warrior race for example).
3. Arguing about what it is to be British is dumb, since the empire brought in peoples from all over. Street food in England has Indian influences, etc.
Impressions
The book talked a lot about things that I though most people would already know. The empire wasn't great for the people of the colonies, specifically people with different looks/skin colour. I'm not sure if I already knew this stuff because of my own bubble or if the author is oblivious to what most people believe. Although it is a good book, it seems fairly self-evident to anyone not white and sheltered and from a small town. I would've liked more detail on most of what he talked about. Every time he got to a good part in the chapter, I'd realize there was one or two pages left in it and he would start summing up/winding down.
I was interested to find out that although the abolition of slavery was led by the British, they also were the top earners from it first. Also, during abolition, the government paid the ex slave-owners for any 'property' and money they would have lost because of it. Meanwhile, former enslaved people got nothing.
How I Discovered It
It was discussed on Reddit and Twitter right after the Queen died. When people would come out and defend against others bashing her right after her death, others would point to this book to explain why the empire was bad for a whole lot of people.
Who Should Read It?
Anyone who still believes that the British empire was good for humanity overall. Anyone parroting the fact that the English abolished slavery as if that's all that mattered. Most of the left-leaning younger generation wouldn't need to, I think.
How The Book Changed Me
- Not much honestly, a lot of the information I had already known.
- Good to have a simple book to point to if someone asks
My Top Three Quotes
My parents never really explained why they came here beyond the fact that my grandparents had already arrived and they were entitled to call over dependants to join them, and they essentially corroborated Powell’s politics with their behaviour: never packing away the suitcases they had arrived with, resisting getting British passports in case they had to go back to India, and telling me that you voted Labour if you wanted brown immigrants to stay and Conservative if you wanted immigrants to go ‘home’.
More recently this sense of privilege and entitlement was inadvertently dramatized by a Brexiteer commenting on social media: he had campaigned to liberate the UK from the EU but when he found himself being forced to wait in an immigration queue at an EU airport in Amsterdam, he complained out loud that ‘this isn’t the Brexit I voted for’.
Freudian psychoanalysts believe that if you deny or repress a traumatic experience, you risk acting out versions of the original trauma in ways that can be self-defeating.