"Black and British: A Forgotten History is a comprehensive and thorough combing through the fine details of a complex history that has been largely watered down and wiped from British memory."
Accompanied by a four-part BBC documentary that aired in 2016, Black and British seeks to reorient our view of Black British history towards a more global perspective. Currently, Black history is still heavily marginalised, sidelined and diminished as some niche historical category that only concerns Black people and has no interconnected global significance to other more prominent periods of time. For example, during the first American Revolution of the late 18th century, countless African slaves fought on the side of the British to quell rebellions that were arising in the colonies, a fact that has been wholly removed from record.
It’s evident that Olusoga and everyone else who contributed towards this book have made immense efforts to compile a sharply rendered account of Black British history. The book admits where the evidence left behind concerning certain individual figures is regrettably sparse. For example, in the case of James Somerset, the ‘Negro of Virginia’ who was directly involved in the momentous ‘Somerset case’ of Georgian London. We know little about Somerset’s life beyond court documents and the words written about him in the diary of Abolitionist Granville Sharp, who also represented him in court.
Despite this however, the book presents a vast and wide-ranging genealogy of historical evidence; archaeological, written or otherwise, that has survived antiquity, to document Black British history. It’s too much to list all the noteworthy events covered, but broadly speaking, we read about archaic periods such as the Roman occupation during the 1st and 2nd centuries and the existence of ‘Afro-Romans' who lived in England as a result. It also covers attitudes towards Black people in Shakespearse’s day to the gradual rise of the Atlantic slave trade during the 17th and 18th centuries, which helped Britian become one of the most powerful Empires in the world.
It documents the lives of the many Black Georgians living in England, both free and enslaved, the fervent rise of Abolitionism during the 1820s and 30s, circling back to renewed feelings of hostility in the early Victiorian period. Into the World Wars, a time when the British struggled with this new reality of larger and larger numbers of Black people coming to settle on their shores. It looks at the time when American GIs were deployed to Britain in 1942 and the White Brits who stood in opposition to White Americans over their treatment of Black American servicemen. And finally more modern periods; the arrival of the Empire Windrush in Essex in 1948 (which many erroneously consider to be the starting point of Black British history), the prominence of racist apathy and riots during the 1950s and 60s, “Powellism”, riots and over-policing in the 1980s and into our current day.
Though titled Black and British, the book mainly spotlights England when discussing Black history and appears to use the terms ‘English’ and ‘British’ interchangeably on some occasions. However there are a few fleeting mentions of the Black experience in other British nations (Wales and Scotland in particular). Additionally, Olusoga exposes the very male-centered nature of Black British history where the voices, experiences and resistance efforts of Black women, in support of Abolitionist causes and slave rebellions form only a reductive part of our history.
Black and British was a huge undertaking, a book it took me over 2 months to read! But in the end, I’m so glad I committed to finishing it and I believe it to be successful in its aim of reinforcing the narrative that Black British history is a significant part of our national heritage and it is a history that concerns all of us.
| Primary Genre | History |
| Other Genres: |
In this vital re-examination of a shared history, historian and broadcaster David Olusoga tells the rich and revealing story of the long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa and the Caribbean.
This edition, fully revised and updated, features a new chapter encompassing the Windrush scandal and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, events which put black British history at the centre of urgent national debate. Black and British is vivid confirmation that black history can no longer be kept separate and marginalised. It is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation and it belongs to us all.
Drawing on new genealogical research, original records, and expert testimony, Black and British reaches back to Roman Britain, the medieval imagination, Elizabethan ‘blackamoors’ and the global slave-trading empire. It shows that the great industrial boom of the nineteenth century was built on American slavery, and that black Britons fought at Trafalgar and in the trenches of both World Wars. Black British history is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation. It is not a singular history, but one that belongs to us all.
Unflinching, confronting taboos, and revealing hitherto unknown scandals, Olusoga describes how the lives of black and white Britons have been entwined for centuries.
Black and British features in the following genres: History, European history, Social and cultural history, Colonialism and imperialism, Slavery and abolition of slavery, Ethnic groups and multicultural studies, Social discrimination and social justice, History and Archaeology, History: specific events and topics, Ethnic studies, Social groups, communities and identities, Society and culture: general, Society and Social Sciences, Social and ethical issues, Sharing Diverse Voices, Fiction
Black and British is available in Paperback
Black and British was written by David Olusoga and published by Picador an imprint of Pan Macmillan
Black and British has 640 pages
£11.69
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