[An] impassioned and deeply personal journey through Britain’s imperial past and present ... Without getting bogged down in definitions, calculations or complicated comparisons, Empireland also manages to convey something of the sheer variety of imperial experiences over four centuries, and the limits of broad-brush explanations ... Sanghera’s unflinching attempt to understand this process, and to counter the cognitive dissonance and denial of Britain’s modern imperial amnesia, makes for a moving and stimulating book that deserves to be widely read.
In this excellent book, the Times writer Sathnam Sanghera tries to understand why the modern British display such amnesia about their forebears’ vast, world-changing project ... He is a good guide to the complexities of this issue, less because of his background... than because of his instincts, which are balanced and largely optimistic ... He criticises the bitter binary quality of debate around empire, which requires screaming on both sides. And he is largely positive about Britain and its future ... If I had any criticism, it would be that Sanghera is a little snooty about white working-class attitudes. Like the colonised, imperial history was mostly something that was done to them; an uneasy and suspicious response to its effects is hardly surprising. But this is a book anyone really interested in their own identity in modern Britain should read, enjoy and occasionally shout at.
American readers will find much that’s familiar in the account that follows, in which the author probes Britain’s imperial history to find its present-day influences ... The author frequently strings lists of names or facts into single, long sentences, accreting evidence for his argument that, say, Britain has been multicultural for centuries in a way that is hard to deny—and when he uses the same rhetorical device in his unexpectedly optimistic conclusion, it’s equally effective.
