The sun may have set on the British Empire, but this piercing examination of its legacies is thoroughly timely.
A British Sikh journalist and documentarian probes the lasting effects of “one of the biggest white supremacist enterprises in the history of humanity.”
Sanghera opens this U.S. edition (the book was published in the U.K. in 2021) with a note to American readers: “The contention that the War of Independence marked a total rejection of the British Empire is the historical equivalent of a teenager leaving home and declaring that his parents had nothing to do with shaping him.” Indeed, 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—which are everywhere: in Britain’s monuments and museums, education system, multiculturalism, racism, even its trash TV. Drawing from sources as varied as Jan Morris, Edward Said, and Twitter, Sanghera moves elegantly through one legacy to the next, frequently opposing imperial apologists against detractors. Observing that much British conversation about empire has been binary—“a veritable industrial oven of hot potatoes”—he pleads for a nuanced view of Britain’s “difficult history.” Acknowledging that his “quintessentially British” education “encouraged me to view my Indian heritage through patronizing Western eyes,” he nevertheless loves the nation, even though immigrants are "endlessly instructed to integrate.” It is, as he points out passionately, his home. 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. Readers whose familiarity with British history and culture is not acute may find themselves reaching for external context at times, but Sanghera’s exploration of the topic is consistently lively and just as often laugh-out-loud funny as it is deeply painful. Marlon James provides the foreword.
The sun may have set on the British Empire, but this piercing examination of its legacies is thoroughly timely.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9780593316672
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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