I can’t figure out if I’m more embarrassed or frustrated that Akala’s Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire didn’t make it to the top of my reading list before now. A brilliant book. Highly recommended.

Right from the start, passages like this made me realise it was going to contain perspectives and ways of phasing things that I knew about, but not nearly well enough.

Never mind that Britain has a German royal family, a Norman ruling elite, a Greek patron saint, a Roman/Middle Eastern religion, Indian food as its national cuisine, an Arabic/Indian numeral system, a Latin alphabet and an identity predicated on a multi-ethnic, globe-spanning empire – ‘fuck the bloody foreigners’. Never mind that waves of migration have been a constant in British history and that great many millions of ‘white’ Britons are themselves descendants of Jewish, Eastern European and Irish migrants of the nineteenth century, nor that even in the post-war ‘mass migration’ years, Ireland and Europe were the largest source of immigrants. And, of course, let’s say nothing about the millions of British emigrants, settlers and colonists abroad – conveniently labeled ‘expats’.

I’m almost at the end of the book now and similar to how I started, I’m struggling to figure out how I feel.

Impressed by how well articulated it is.

Angry about the stories it contains that differ so wildly from my experience growing up as a white British youth.

Or excited and inspired by how well it illustrates that thorough research and clear communication is key to effective learning.

Again, highly recommend.

If you need a bit more info before you buy then this is a great overview from the BBC.

It’s also reminded me that I had a ton of notes from 2022 about the similarly brilliant Empireland which I need to revisit.