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A review by fayabernethybooks
Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent by Priyamvada Gopal
4.0
The history we were never taught at school
Reading this book took me months. The writing is dry and academic and the typeface is tiny: making it a physical challenge as well as a mental one. But there was never any question of giving up halfway through.
Every page held information which was new to me – revelations my school history lessons never taught me about. A pattern repeated in every corner of the former British Empire and which is absolutely relevant in today’s world. A tale of violent suppression by a government desperate to cling on to power.
Time and again throughout history, freedoms and rights were never ‘awarded’ by the incumbent elites. They had to be wrested from them, through decades of persistent struggle: by incredibly brave individuals building a movement which eventually became unstoppable.
To me, this book shows it is impossible to fundamentally change an unjust society without some form of disruption. But also that - when enough people put their minds to it - change is inevitable. We can all draw hope from that.
Reading this book took me months. The writing is dry and academic and the typeface is tiny: making it a physical challenge as well as a mental one. But there was never any question of giving up halfway through.
Every page held information which was new to me – revelations my school history lessons never taught me about. A pattern repeated in every corner of the former British Empire and which is absolutely relevant in today’s world. A tale of violent suppression by a government desperate to cling on to power.
Time and again throughout history, freedoms and rights were never ‘awarded’ by the incumbent elites. They had to be wrested from them, through decades of persistent struggle: by incredibly brave individuals building a movement which eventually became unstoppable.
To me, this book shows it is impossible to fundamentally change an unjust society without some form of disruption. But also that - when enough people put their minds to it - change is inevitable. We can all draw hope from that.