
Empireland
How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain
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Narrated by:
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Homer Todiwala
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Marlon James
About this listen
A best-selling journalist’s illuminating tour through the hidden legacies and modern realities of British empire that exposes how much of the present-day United Kingdom is actually rooted in its colonial past. Empireland boldly and lucidly makes the case that in order to understand America, we must first understand British imperialism.
"Empireland is brilliantly written, deeply researched and massively important. It’ll stay in your head for years.” —John Oliver, Emmy Award-winning host of "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver"
With a new introduction by the author and a foreword by Booker Prize-winner Marlon James
A best-selling journalist’s illuminating tour through the hidden legacies and modern realities of British empire that exposes how much of the present-day United Kingdom is actually rooted in its colonial past. Empireland boldly and lucidly makes the case that in order to understand America, we must first understand British imperialism. Empire—whether British or otherwise—informs nearly everything we do. From common thought to our daily routines; from the foundations of social safety nets to the realities of racism; and from the distrust of public intellectuals to the exceptionalism that permeates immigration debates, the Brexit campaign and the global reckonings with controversial memorials, Empireland shows how the pernicious legacy of Western imperialism undergirds our everyday lives, yet remains shockingly obscured from view.
In accessible, witty prose, award-winning journalist and best-selling author Sathnam Sanghera traces this legacy back to its source, exposing how—in both profound and innocuous ways—imperial domination has shaped the United Kingdom we know today. Sanghera connects the historical dots across continents and seas to show how the shadows of a colonial past still linger over modern-day Britain and how the world, in turn, was shaped by Britain’s looming hand. The implications, of course, extend to Britain’s most notorious former colony turned imperial power: the United States of America, which prides itself for its maverick soul and yet seems to have inherited all the ambition, brutality and exceptional thinking of its parent.
With a foreword by Booker Prize–winner Marlon James, Empireland is a revelatory and lucid work of political history that offers a sobering appraisal of the past so we may move toward a more just future.
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"Empireland is brilliantly written, deeply researched and massively important. It’ll stay in your head for years.” —John Oliver, Emmy Award-winning host of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
"A generously shared journey of discovery. Sanghera is a journalist in the Orwellian mold, inviting readers to witness his experiment on himself as an example of the conclusions that a decent, acerbically witty, public-school-educated Brit might arrive at after wading through the evidence of what Britain owes to empire." —The Nation
"Robust . . . an illuminating examination of the 'toxic cocktail of nostalgia and amnesia' that still hugely influences our life today." —Guardian, "Best Books of 2021"
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Great Historian, Worth Listening
- By Janice on 01-19-25
By: Elliott West
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The Blazing World
- A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689
- By: Jonathan Healey
- Narrated by: Oliver Hembrough
- Length: 19 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The seventeenth century was a revolutionary age for the English. It started as they suddenly found themselves ruled by a Scotsman, and it ended in the shadow of an invasion by the Dutch. Under James I, England suffered terrorism and witch panics. Under his son Charles, state and society collapsed into civil war, to be followed by an army coup and regicide. For a short time—for the only time in history—England was a republic. There were bitter struggles over faith and Parliament asserted itself like never before. There were no boundaries to politics.
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Been looking for this book for a long time
- By cmurrell on 07-30-23
By: Jonathan Healey
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We the Poisoned
- Exposing the Flint Water Crisis Cover-Up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans
- By: Jordan Chariton, Erin Brockovich - foreword
- Narrated by: Pete Cross, Sophie Amoss
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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As the ongoing Flint water crisis marks its tenth anniversary, Chariton reveals shocking new evidence of the major government cover-up that resulted in the poisoning of Flint—and shatters what you think you know about what caused the water crisis.
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I thought I had learned what I could, until now
- By Anonymous User on 10-18-24
By: Jordan Chariton, and others
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Alexandria
- The City That Changed the World
- By: Islam Issa
- Narrated by: Islam Issa
- Length: 20 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Combining rigorous research with myth and folklore, Alexandria is an authoritative history of a city that has shaped our modern world. Soon after being founded by Alexander the Great, Alexandria became the crucible of cultural exchange between East and West for millennia and the undisputed global capital of knowledge. It was at the forefront of human progress, but it also witnessed brutal natural disasters, plagues, crusades, and violence.
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More than a city history
- By Ramsey S on 12-11-24
By: Islam Issa
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The Teacher Wars
- A History of America's Most Embattled Profession
- By: Dana Goldstein
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Teacher Wars, a rich, lively, and unprecedented history of public school teaching, Dana Goldstein reveals that teachers have been embattled for nearly two centuries. She uncovers the surprising roots of hot button issues, from teacher tenure to charter schools, and finds that recent popular ideas to improve schools—instituting merit pay, evaluating teachers by student test scores, ranking and firing veteran teachers, and recruiting “elite” graduates to teach—are all approaches that have been tried in the past without producing widespread change.
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Out of date before it was released. Disappointing.
- By Jason on 04-03-22
By: Dana Goldstein
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The Earth Transformed
- An Untold History
- By: Peter Frankopan
- Narrated by: Peter Frankopan
- Length: 29 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Global warming is one of the greatest dangers mankind faces today. Even as temperatures increase, sea levels rise, and natural disasters escalate, our current environmental crisis feels difficult to predict and understand. But climate change and its effects on us are not new. In a bold narrative that spans centuries and continents, Peter Frankopan argues that nature has always played a fundamental role in the writing of history.
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A Thoughtful History of A Complex Phenomenon
- By Lucy A. Pithecus on 04-21-23
By: Peter Frankopan
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I Dread the Thought of the Place
- The Battle of Antietam and the End of the Maryland Campaign
- By: D. Scott Hartwig
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 47 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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The memory of the Battle of Antietam was so haunting that when, nine months later, Major Rufus Dawes learned another Antietam battle might be on the horizon, he wrote, "I hope not, I dread the thought of the place." In this definitive account, historian D. Scott Hartwig chronicles the single bloodiest day in American history, which resulted in 23,000 casualties.
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Great Followup
- By Jeff G on 01-28-25
By: D. Scott Hartwig
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Regenesis
- Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet
- By: George Monbiot
- Narrated by: George Monbiot
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Farming is the world's greatest cause of environmental destruction - and the one we are least prepared to talk about. We criticize urban sprawl, but farming sprawls across 30 times as much land. We have ploughed, fenced and grazed great tracts of the planet, felling forests, killing wildlife, and poisoning rivers and oceans to feed ourselves. Yet millions still go hungry.
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Biased, ignores science
- By Soil Enthusiast on 04-25-23
By: George Monbiot
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Stuff Matters
- Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World
- By: Mark Miodownik
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In Stuff Matters, Miodownik entertainingly examines the materials he encounters in a typical morning, from the steel in his razor and the graphite in his pencil to the foam in his sneakers and the concrete in a nearby skyscraper. He offers a compendium of the most astounding histories and marvelous scientific breakthroughs in the material world.
By: Mark Miodownik
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Lethal Tides
- Mary Sears and the Marine Scientists Who Helped Win World War II
- By: Catherine Musemeche
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In Lethal Tides, Catherine Musemeche weaves together science, biography, and military history in the compelling story of an unsung woman who had a dramatic effect on the U.S. Navy’s success against Japan in WWII, creating an intelligence-gathering juggernaut based on the new science of oceanography. When World War II began, the U.S. Navy was unprepared to enact its island-hopping strategy to reach Japan. Anticipating tides, planning for coral reefs, and preparing for enemy fire was new ground for them, and with lives at stake it was ground that had to be covered quickly.
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You can't land on a beach if you can't find one
- By Aubible Book Ernie on 12-18-22
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Fifty-Three Days on Starvation Island
- The World War II Battle That Saved Marine Corps Aviation
- By: John R Bruning
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 19 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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On August 20, 1942, twelve Marine dive-bombers and nineteen Marine fighters landed at Guadalcanal. Their mission: defeat the Japanese navy and prevent it from sending more men and supplies to "Starvation Island," as Guadalcanal was nicknamed. The Japanese were turning the remote, jungle-covered mountain in the south Solomon Islands into an air base from which they could attack the supply lines between the U.S. and Australia.
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A unique perspective
- By Item arrived onetime and has functioned perfectly. on 05-23-24
By: John R Bruning
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The Ruin of All Witches
- Life and Death in the New World
- By: Malcolm Gaskill
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In Springfield, Massachusetts in 1651, peculiar things begin to happen. Precious food spoils, livestock ails, property vanishes, and people suffer convulsions as if possessed by demons. A woman is seen wading through the swamp like a lost soul. Disturbing dreams and visions proliferate. Children sicken and die. As tensions rise, rumours spread of witches and heretics and the community becomes tangled in a web of distrust, resentment and denunciation.
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interesting story that gets lost in the details
- By M. Johannes on 04-10-23
By: Malcolm Gaskill
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The Metaverse
- Building the Spatial Internet / Fully Revised and Updated Edition
- By: Matthew Ball
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 17 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In this fully revised and updated edition of his internationally best-selling book, pioneering theorist and entrepreneur Matthew Ball goes beyond the hype cycle to present a definitive account of the future of the internet. The Metaverse, according to Ball’s industry-shaping definition, is a persistent and interconnected network of 3D virtual worlds that will eventually serve as the gateway to most online experiences and underpin much of the physical world.
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Matthew Ball does it again!
- By Bubba Gaeddert on 10-01-24
By: Matthew Ball
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The Last Campaign
- Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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William Tecumseh Sherman and Geronimo were keen strategists and bold soldiers, ruthless with their enemies. Over the course of the 1870s and 1880s these two war chiefs would confront each other in the final battle for what the American West would be: a sparsely settled, wild home where Indian tribes could thrive, or a densely populated extension of the America to the east of the Mississippi.
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Outstanding Unbiased Native American History
- By Paul W. Brazis on 11-07-22
By: H. W. Brands
What listeners say about Empireland
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kindle Customer
- 03-02-25
The through line to today
Amazing story of centuries of imperial thought and how it informs the present day world
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- Paul in Towson, MD
- 05-16-23
Valuable Work and a Good Listen
This book is half history and half essay and social commentary. It is not a comprehensive history of the British Empire. It is a selection of representative events, mostly focused on the East India Company and the British Raj, interspersed with insights into their lasting impact on Great Britain today. It is a balanced and nuanced account, not a rant.
It mentions only briefly the British role in China, and largely overlooks the imperial policy of using the colonies as sources of raw material for British industry, rather then encouraging indigenous industrial development.
The production and delivery reading is outstanding.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Maggie A.
- 07-02-23
Important history
Easy to listen to (pleasant narrator) but the subject matter is stomach churning. It’s more important now than ever to understand this complex subject, and this a digestible overview.
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1 person found this helpful
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- AG
- 04-10-24
A good book ruined by an awful perfoemance
It is both a shame and an irony that a book about Britain's colonial sins should be performed by someone who can't be bothered to properly pronounce non-English words.
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-16-23
Eye-opening book and a must read
As a person born in the former empire, I thought I knew the story of British colonization. I was aghast at the size and influence of the historic wrongs. And worse, the complete denial of 400 years of those atrocities.
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- sistahatty
- 08-05-23
Important history
Well told and objectively presented. A much needed reality check for an Anglophile. Should be required reading.
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- John Carey
- 02-16-24
breath and depth of knowledge of the subject matter
understanding our history is critical. empireland is required reading to contextualize the British modern experience through the honest lens of our imperial history
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