Black and British

A Forgotten History, from the acclaimed historian and star of 'Celebrity Traitors'

By: David Olusoga

Narrated by: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith

Winner of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize
Winner of the Longman History Today Trustees’ Award
Longlisted for the Orwell Prize

Unflinching and revealing, Black and British is a vital history that reveals how black British lives have been woven into the fabric of the nation for centuries – from Roman Britain to the Black Lives Matter protests.

'Groundbreaking' – The Observer
'A radical reappraisal’ – The Guardian
'Written with great force and passion’ – The Sunday Times

Drawing on new research, original records and expert testimony, David Olusoga's Black and British shows us exactly why black history is not a separate or marginalized story, but an integral part of Britain's cultural and economic life.

Stretching back as far as Roman Britain, the medieval imagination, Elizabethan ‘blackamoors’ and the global slave-trading empire, it shows that the great industrial boom of the nineteenth century was built on American slavery, and that black Britons fought at Trafalgar and in the trenches of both World Wars.

Now fully revised and updated to include the Windrush scandal and the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a history that reveals how the lives of black and white Britons have been entwined for centuries – a history that belongs to us all.

Critic reviews

You could not ask for a more judicious, comprehensive and highly readable survey of a part of British history that has been so long overlooked or denied. David Olusoga, in keeping with the high standards of his earlier books, is a superb guide. (Adam Hochschild, bestselling author of King Leopold's Ghost)

Groundbreaking.

[A] comprehensive and important history of black Britain . . . Written with a wonderful clarity of style and with great force and passion.

A radical reappraisal of the parameters of history, exposing lacunae in the nation’s version of its past. (Arifa Akbar, The Guardian)

A thrilling tale of excavation. (Colin Grant, The Guardian)

[Olusoga] has discovered new and exciting research materials . . . Such sources give his writing freshness, originality and compassion . . . [Black and British] will inspire and will come to be seen as a major effort to address one of the greatest silences in British historiography (David Dabydeen, The New Statesman)

Lucid and accessible.

Olusoga's account challenges narrow visions of Britain's past. By tracing the triangulated connections between Britain, America and Africa, he presents black British history in global terms [...] His subjects, even those who barely figure in the historical record, appear as individuals who matter, both in their own right and as historical exemplars.

An insightful, inclusive history of black people in Britain . . . Rich in detail and packed with strong personalities, this is an important contribution to our understanding of life in the UK.

Ambitious . . . Long overdue. (Hakim Adi, The Spectator)

Olusoga has single-handedly over recent years forced our forgotten history on the agenda . . . Written with an urgency it is a thrilling and engaging read.

An erudite exploration of racism and how it continues to mutate . . . it is exhilarating to read a fine mind at work. (Cathy Rentzenbrink, The Guardian)

Absolutely fantastic

As a black Briton I am so grateful for this book.
It has given me a start point in my history that I didn't receive in school. I genuinely believe this should be a part of the British school curriculum.

An excellent tour de force of history

This book is the most encompassing and well written book on the role of Britain in the transatlantic slave trade. I would specifically call out how well this book connects the African diaspora to the United Kingdom and all of the Crown colonies.

This book is required reading for anyone that wants to understand the history of what it means to be Black and British and to contextualize empire in this context over the centuries.

Bravo