David Olusoga uncovers long, shared history between the British Isles and the people of Africa, drawing on new genetic and genealogical research, original records, expert testimony, contemporary interviews.
Genre: Books, History.
Full Title: Black and British: A Forgotten History
Author: David Olusoga, award-winning British-Nigerian historian, writer and broadcaster.
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Place: London, UK
Description: David Olusoga offers readers a rich and revealing exploration of the extraordinarily long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa. Drawing on new genetic and genealogical research, original records, expert testimony, and contemporary interviews, Black and British: A Forgotten History reaches back to Roman Britain, the medieval imagination and Shakespeare’s Othello.
His book persuasively demonstrates how, behind the South Sea Bubble, Britain’s global slave-trading empire and American slavery built much of the great industrial boom of the nineteenth century. It shows how Black Britons fought at Trafalgar and in the trenches of the First World War. And Olusoga reads Black British history in stately homes, street names, statues, and memorials across Britain, woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation.
Unflinching, confronting taboos and revealing hitherto unknown scandals, Olusoga describes how black and white Britons have been intimately entwined for centuries. In his expert hands, Black and British thus becomes a vital re-examination of our shared history.
Released to coincide with the landmark BBC Two Series of the same name.
For more details, see the book’s publication site at Pan Macmillan.
