Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain

British journalist and memoirist Sanghera (The Boy with the Topknot) explores the hidden legacy of the former British Empire, which existed for hundreds of years and continues to shape modern Britain. Sanghera presents an extensive history of the British Empire from its early days to its largest expanse in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the empire controlled 24 percent of the world. He reveals the empire’s impact on the origins of America which continue to influence the American mythos of freedom and justice for all. In today’s Britain, the sordid past of the empire is now being diffused by schools that deny the truth and instead indoctrinate students in patriotic education; Sanghera’s scholarly work will likely provoke controversy. Narrator Homer Todiwala’s slight Indian accent smartly conveys this work, and 2015 Booker Prize winner Marlon James’s distinctive Jamaican accent enhances the foreword. The work clarifies and updates Jan Morris’s more sentimental “Pax Britannica” trilogy about the former empire.