Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire

· John Murray · Narrated by Kojo Koram
4.0
1 review
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10 hr 18 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook

'BRILLIANTLY ARRANGED AND RICH WITH FRESH INSIGHTS, UNCOMMON WEALTH REMINDS US HOW THE FORGOTTEN STORIES OF EMPIRE AND DECOLONISATION CONTINUE TO IMPACT OUR DAILY LIVES IN BRITAIN - AND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD - UP TO TODAY' AKALA

Britain didn't just put the empire back the way it had found it.

In Uncommon Wealth, Kojo Koram traces the tale of how after the end of the British empire an interconnected group of well-heeled British intellectuals, politicians, accountants and lawyers offshored their capital, seized assets and saddled debt in former 'dependencies'. This enabled horrific inequality across the globe as ruthless capitalists profited and ordinary people across Britain's former territories in colonial Africa, Asia and the Caribbean were trapped in poverty. However, the reinforcement of capitalist power across the world also ricocheted back home. Now it has left many Britons wondering where their own sovereignty and prosperity has gone...

Decolonisation was not just a trendy buzzword. It was one of the great global changes of the past hundred years, yet Britain - the protagonist in the whole, messy drama - has forgotten it was ever even there. A blistering uncovering of the scandal of Britain's disastrous treatment of independent countries after empire, Uncommon Wealth shows the decisions of decades past are contributing to the forces that are breaking Britain today.

(P) Hodder & Stoughton Limited

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Ratings and reviews

4.0
1 review
Benjie Foster
April 6, 2023
A great book , makes understanding the financial side of the empire.
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About the author

Kojo Koram is an author and Professor, teaching at the School of Law at Loughborough University. Born in Accra, Ghana and raised on Merseyside, he is now based in London. In addition to his academic writing, he has written for the New Statesman, Guardian and New York Times. He is the author of Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire (John Murray, 2022). His first book Uncommon Wealth won the English PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize, was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing and the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing and was chosen as a Guardian book of the year.

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