Imaobong Umoren

A powerful and important reckoning with Britain's imperial legacy and contemporary systemic racism 'A richly told history of Empire from which we cannot turn away' AFUA HIRSCH 'I’d have loved to have read such a book when I was a schoolboy' COLIN GRANT From the 1500s to the mid-twentieth century, the events that took place in the Caribbean – from conquest, colonisation and capitalism to racial slavery, revolution and migration – and the people who forged them played a seminal role in creating modern Britain and the Anglophone Caribbean. By the 1960s, Western global empires had begun to crumble. Yet the British Empire in the Caribbean did not end. Instead, colonialism was replaced with a new type of power whose impact can still be felt: neo-colonialism. Empire Without End offers a new interpretation of the British Empire, its enduring entanglement with the Anglophone Caribbean and the longevity of systemic racism. Taking a longer historical perspective starting in the period of European contact with the Caribbean and ending today, Imaobong Umoren looks at the impact and legacies of racial slavery to explore how later linked histories relating to capitalism, class, labour, war, political economy, poverty, gender and culture are crucial to telling the full story. In doing so, she sets out a compelling strategy to define our roles and responsibilities in challenging the legacy of colonialism and hierarchy – a legacy that continues to blight our society and our politics.

A powerful and important reckoning with Britain's imperial legacy and contemporary systemic racism'A richly told history of Empire from which we cannot turn away' AFUA HIRSCH'I’d have loved to have read such a book when I was a schoolboy' COLIN GRANTFrom the 1500s to the mid-twentieth century, the events that took place in the Caribbean – from conquest, colonisation and capitalism to racial slavery, revolution and migration – and the people who forged them played a seminal role in creating modern Britain and the Anglophone Caribbean. By the 1960s, Western global empires had begun to crumble. Yet the British Empire in the Caribbean did not end. Instead, colonialism was replaced with a new type of power whose impact can still be felt: neo-colonialism. Empire Without End offers a new interpretation of the British Empire, its enduring entanglement with the Anglophone Caribbean and the longevity of systemic racism. Taking a longer historical perspective starting in the period of European contact with the Caribbean and ending today, Imaobong Umoren looks at the impact and legacies of racial slavery to explore how later linked histories relating to capitalism, class, labour, war, political economy, poverty, gender and culture are crucial to telling the full story. In doing so, she sets out a compelling strategy to define our roles and responsibilities in challenging the legacy of colonialism and hierarchy – a legacy that continues to blight our society and our politics.

Despite all the traumas, violence and setbacks which marked its progress, the story of the American civil rights movement is an uplifting one. It is the story of one of America's greatest revolutions. In the popular imagination, it is often seen as little more than a series of set-piece protests against Southern segregation, led by a charismatic minister, Martin Luther King - protests that eventually moved the conscience of a nation and inevitably climaxed in victory. But it was much more than that, and its roots stretch back to World War Two and beyond - back to the fight against slavery and the aftermath of emancipation. In the meantime, the movement has generated a vast and rich scholarship from historical researchers not just in America but all round the world. Stephen Tuck and Imaobong Umoren tell the story of US civil rights, from its origins to the present day, and explain what it was like to be black in the American South in the 1950s, when all areas of life were segregated, with black Americans having to attend vastly inferior schools, being restricted to the back of public transport, and not being allowed to eat at department store lunch counters at all. Birmingham, Alabama's notorious Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, once vowed: "I may not be able to preserve segregation, but I'll die trying.". But despite the progress since then the civil rights debate remains at the forefront of American life. As Barack Obama, America's first African American president, observed at the dedication of a memorial to Martin Luther King in 2011, "our work, Dr. King's work, is not yet complete".