Imperial Nostalgia: How the British Conquered Themselves - Paperback

by Peter Mitchell (Author)

A strong emotional attachment to the memory of empire runs deep in British culture. In recent years, that memory has become a battleground in a long-drawn ideological war, inflecting debates on race, class, gender, culture, the UK's future and its place in the world. This provocative and passionate book surveys the scene of the imperial memory wars in contemporary Britain, exploring how the myths that structure our views of empire came to be, and how they inform the present. Taking in such diverse subjects as Rory Stewart and inter-war adventure fiction, man's facial hair and Kipling, the Alt-right and the Red Wall, Imperial Nostalgia asks how our relationship with our national past has gone wrong, and how it might be improved.

Front Jacket

To be British means to be haunted by empire - in our culture, in our politics, in the way we relate to ourselves and the world. In this book, Peter Mitchell examines how our complicated relationship with our imperial past pervades life in contemporary Britain, and asks why we can't seem to let it go. From the free speech debate to the cultural politics of pandemic, from adventure fiction to the resurgence of race science, Imperial Nostalgia explores how the ghosts and fantasies of empire haunt the present, shaping our debates on race, class, gender, education and politics. With forensic wit, Mitchell delves into the imperial roots of how history itself is written, traces the development of our key imperial mythologies, and asks how we might come to a full and honest reckoning with our imperial past. Imperial Nostalgia is essential reading for those seeking to understand how the way we imagine the past structures our present - and how understanding this might make it possible to have better conversations about what that past means.

Back Jacket

'It can feel, at times, that the culture wars aimed at sowing division in Britain are going to tear us apart. Mitchell's fantastic new book, however, provides grounds for optimism and teaches us that the answer is to be informed. And there is no better, no more elegant, and no more erudite guide than Mitchell. An essential book for these disconcerting times.'
Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain

'There are very few writers I can think of who combine Mitchell's intelligence, moral clarity, and elegant prose. Every line in this book is rousing. You will not only learn something about our warped understanding of our past. You will also want to do something about it. '
Nesrine Malik, author of We Need New Stories: Challenging the Toxic Myths Behind Our Age of Discontent

'This is a brilliant account of Britain's ideological present, where the national past is mythologised into simplistic fables that benefit retrograde political forces. With forensic insight and in lively prose, Mitchell shows us how nostalgic fantasies of imperial rightness and whiteness are at the heart of a multitude of concocted cultural battles that seek to prevent a necessarily difficult reckoning with real history.'
Priyamvada Gopal, author of Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent

To be British means to be haunted by empire - in our culture, in our politics, in the way we relate to ourselves and the world.

Imperial nostalgia examines how our complicated relationship with our imperial past pervades life in contemporary Britain, and asks why we can't seem to let it go. From the free speech debate to the cultural politics of pandemic, from adventure fiction to the resurgence of race science, Mitchell explores how the ghosts and fantasies of empire haunt the present, and asks how we might come to a full and honest reckoning with our imperial past.