Black and British: A Forgotten History

About the Book

Winner of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize
Winner of the Longman History Today Trustees’ Award
Longlisted for the Orwell Prize

Unflinching and revealing, Black and British is a vital history that reveals how black British lives have been woven into the fabric of the nation for centuries – from Roman Britain to the Black Lives Matter protests.

'Groundbreaking' – The Observer
'A radical reappraisal’ – The Guardian
'Written with great force and passion’ – The Sunday Times

Drawing on new research, original records and expert testimony, David Olusoga's Black and British shows us exactly why black history is not a separate or marginalized story, but an integral part of Britain's cultural and economic life.

Stretching back as far as 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.

Now fully revised and updated to include the Windrush scandal and the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a history that reveals how the lives of black and white Britons have been entwined for centuries – a history that belongs to us all.

Table of Contents:
Section - i: List of Illustrations Section - ii: Preface Introduction - iii: ‘Years of Distant Wandering’ Chapter - One: ‘Sons of Ham’ Chapter - Two: ‘Blackamoors’ Chapter - Three: ‘For Blacks or Dogs’ Chapter - Four: ‘Too Pure an Air for Slaves' Chapter - Five: ‘Province of Freedom’ Chapter - Six: ‘The Monster is Dead’ Chapter - Seven: Moral Mission Chapter - Eight: ‘Liberated Africans’ Chapter - Nine: ‘Cotton is King' Chapter - Ten: ‘Mercy in a Massacre' Chapter - Eleven: ‘Darkest Africa’ Chapter - Twelve: ‘We are a Coloured Empire' Chapter - Thirteen: ‘We Prefer their Company' Chapter - Fourteen: ‘Swamped' Section - iv: Conclusion Acknowledgements - v: Acknowledgements Section - vi: Bibliography Section - vii: Notes Index - viii: Index

About the Author :
David Olusoga is a British-Nigerian historian, author, presenter and BAFTA winning film-maker. He is Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester, the author of several books including Black and British, and a columnist for the Observer, the Voice and BBC History Magazine, also writing for the Guardian and the New Statesman. He presents the long-running BBC history series A House Through Time and wrote and presented the multi-award winning BBC series Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners. He is a star on Celebrity Traitors.

Review :
You could not ask for a more judicious, comprehensive and highly readable survey of a part of British history that has been so long overlooked or denied. David Olusoga, in keeping with the high standards of his earlier books, is a superb guide. Groundbreaking. [A] comprehensive and important history of black Britain . . . Written with a wonderful clarity of style and with great force and passion. A radical reappraisal of the parameters of history, exposing lacunae in the nation’s version of its past. A thrilling tale of excavation. [Olusoga] has discovered new and exciting research materials . . . Such sources give his writing freshness, originality and compassion . . . [Black and British] will inspire and will come to be seen as a major effort to address one of the greatest silences in British historiography Lucid and accessible. Olusoga's account challenges narrow visions of Britain's past. By tracing the triangulated connections between Britain, America and Africa, he presents black British history in global terms [...] His subjects, even those who barely figure in the historical record, appear as individuals who matter, both in their own right and as historical exemplars. An insightful, inclusive history of black people in Britain . . . Rich in detail and packed with strong personalities, this is an important contribution to our understanding of life in the UK. Ambitious . . . Long overdue. Olusoga has single-handedly over recent years forced our forgotten history on the agenda . . . Written with an urgency it is a thrilling and engaging read. An erudite exploration of racism and how it continues to mutate . . . it is exhilarating to read a fine mind at work.