John Murray
John Murray
John Murray
John Murray
Uncovering the scandal of Britain's disastrous treatment of independent countries after empire - and how these decisions are breaking Britain today.
WINNER OF THE PEN HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZE 2023
Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing
Shortlisted for the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing
Longlisted for the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding
A Guardian Book of the Year
'Brilliantly arranged and rich with fresh insights' Akala
'A radical, beautifully written understanding of our history' Owen Jones
'You can't understand how Britain works today without reading it' Frankie Boyle
'A challenge to a nation living in the shadow of empire: reckon with your imperial past, or it will come back to bite you' Grace Blakeley
'This book should be part of the national curriculum' Ellie Mae O'Hagan
Britain didn't just put the empire back the way it had found it.
Uncommon Wealth is the little known and shocking history of how Britain treated its former non-white colonies after the end of empire. It is the story of how an interconnected group of British capitalists enabled horrific inequality across the globe, profiting in colonial Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. However, the greed unleashed in this era would boomerang, now leaving many ordinary Britons wondering where their own prosperity has gone. Ranging from Jamaica to Singapore, Ghana to Britain, this is a blistering account of how buried decisions of decades past are ravaging Britain today.
Brilliantly arranged and rich with fresh insights, Uncommon Wealth reminds us how the forgotten stories of empire and decolonisation continue to impact our daily lives in Britain - and throughout the world - up to today.
A radical, beautifully written understanding of our history - ingeniously placing Britain's recent tumult into context
Unflinching and lucidly written, Uncommon Wealth challenges everything you thought you knew about the British Empire and its legacy. This book should be part of the national curriculum
A challenge to a nation living in the shadow of empire: reckon with your imperial past, or it will come back to bite you . . . Stirring, rigorous and readable
Compelling and masterful . . . Perfectly timed for a moment when more are recognizing that the past is not past, the legacies of empire are profound, and another world is possible
Brilliant, illuminating, often surprising and shocking, Kojo Koram's careful and sensitive telling of the stories that so many of us do not know is a masterpiece
An ambitious blend of history, memoir and current affairs - Koram's superb and combative account shows how Britain's near-past can explain its present predicament. A fascinating account of the British Empire written with an exciting blend of passion and scholarship
Uncommon Wealth brilliantly exposes the imperial origins of much of Britain's contemporary crisis. Koram shows how the empire ordered overseas a structure of law, property, economic institutions and citizenship, which came home