SCOTT ALSWORTH foresees the coming of the smaller, leaner, and class conscious indie studio, with art as its guiding star
Latest editorial
Systemic savagery
Insurgent Empire lays bare the depredations of British imperialism, one of the greatest engines of exploitation and oppression in human history, says ANDREW MURRAY
'Civilising' mission: British army operations against the Mau Mau
MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
A New Awakening: Adventures In British Jazz 1966 - 1971, G3, and Buck Owens
Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent
by Priyamvada Gopal
(Verso, £25)
AS BORIS JOHNSON sets out on his self-defined mission to make Britain feel “great” once more, we shall no doubt hear a lot more about the record of the days when Britannia ruled the waves. Right-wing historians like Niall Ferguson and Andrew Roberts will doubtless be on hand to assist.
So this book by Cambridge academic Priyamvada Gopal could not be more timely. She reminds us of the reality of empire, of resistance to it by the peoples it oppressed and how that impacted on politics in Britain itself.
Gopal’s focus is on the interaction of that resistance with political attitudes, initiatives and movements in the metropolis. She seeks to dissolve the “over here” and “over there” binary of anti-imperialism into a mutually stimulating and reinforcing dialectic.
More from this author
Just as German Social Democrats joined the Nazis in singing Deutschland Uber Alles, ANDREW MURRAY observes how Starmer tries to out-Farage Farage with anti-migrant policies — but evidence shows Reform voters come from Tories, not Labour, making this ploy morally bankrupt and politically pointless
