Imperial island

After World War II, Britain’s overseas empire disintegrated. But over the next seventy years, empire came to define Britain as never before. From immigration and race riots, to the Suez Crisis and the Falklands War, from the simplistic moral equation of Band Aid to the invasion of Iraq, the imperial mindset has dominated Britain’s relationship with itself and the world. The ghosts of empire are there, too, in the tragedy of Stephen Lawrence and in the response to radical Islam, in the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics and in scandal of the Windrush deportations – and of course in Brexit. Drawing on a mass of original research into the thoughts and feelings of the British people, pop culture, sport and media, this book tells a story of people on the move and of people trapped in the past, of the end of empire and the birth of multiculturalism, a chronicle of violence and a testament to togetherness.