Insurgent Empire

For those of you near Cambridge on Thursday 6 June 2019, this book launch might be of interest:

Join Dr Priyamvada Gopal at Heffers bookshop as she talks about her new book, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonialism and the Making of British Dissent, in conversation with Dr Christian Hogsbjerg. It is a book that reframes the narrative, focussing on how resistance in the colonies changed British ideas of freedom.

Much has been written on how colonial subjects took up British and European ideas and turned them against empire when making claims to freedom and self-determination. The possibility of reverse influence has been largely overlooked. Insurgent Empire shows how Britain’s enslaved and colonial subjects were not merely victims of empire and subsequent beneficiaries of its crises of conscience but also agents whose resistance both contributed to their own liberation and shaped British ideas about freedom and who could be free. This book examines dissent over the question of empire in Britain and shows how it was influenced by rebellions and resistance in the colonies from the West Indies and East Africa to Egypt and India. It also shows how a pivotal role in fomenting dissent was played by anticolonial campaigners based in London, at the heart of the empire.

For tickets and more information please see here

For more information on Priya’s new book please see here – I am delighted to be joining Priya to help launch it in Cambridge on 6 June.