Multicultural Britain
A People’s History
Format:Hardback
Publisher:C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
Published:15th Aug '24
Should be back in stock very soon
Between the end of the Second World War and the early twenty-first century, Britain became multicultural. This vivid book tells that remarkable story. Kieran Connell, an historian of Irish and German heritage who grew up in Balsall Heath, inner-city Birmingham, takes readers into multicultural communities across Britain at key moments in their development.
Journeying far beyond London, Multicultural Britain explores the messy contradictions of the country’s transition into today’s diverse society. It reveals the ordinary people who have forged Britain’s multiculturalism; skewers public leaders, from Enoch Powell to Harold Wilson to Margaret Thatcher, who have too often weaponised race for their own political ends; and shines a light on the shifting nature of British racism, revealing its enduring day-to-day impact on ethnic-minority groups.
Between postcolonial reckonings and immigration anxieties, how people live together in Brexit Britain remains an urgent question for our time. Connell’s fresh, thought-provoking book unveils British multiculturalism not as a problematic idea, but as a rich and complex lived reality.
‘Its bursts of colour and insights into daily lives of early multicultural societies… [make it] a worthwhile read on a topic that will remain at the heart of public debate in Britain.’
-- The Irish Times‘Kieran Connell’s vividly compelling book makes an epic subject feel immediate and intimate. Written with verve and passion, it yet casts a cold eye on the large historical forces that are in play. Multicultural Britain: A People’s History honours the lives it restores to their proper place in the making of contemporary Britain.’
-- Fintan O’Toole, author of We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958'A compelling read, written with such feeling and scholarship… I have deep admiration for this book.'
-- Professor David Dabydeen, broadcaster, writer and ambassador for the Republic of GuyanaISBN: 9781911723516
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
368 pages