Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire by Akala - Non Fiction - Paperback

Details. Condition: BRAND NEW. Format: Paperback. ISBN: 9781473661233. Publisher: Two Roads. Age Range: Adult / 16+. Overview. Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire is Akala's searing, Sunday Times bestselling exploration of how Britain's imperial past continues to shape race and class today. Blending sharp memoir with rigorous historical analysis, the musician, journalist and political commentator draws on his own upbringing to interrogate policing, education, identity and politics. Accessible yet unflinching, it is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand modern Britain through an honest, evidence-based lens on race, class and empire.. About the Book. Akala opens with a childhood memory of being stopped and searched, using this and other formative experiences as a springboard into a wider reckoning with Britain's social and historical landscape. He traces how the legacies of slavery and empire still inform contemporary inequality. Chapters examine the criminal justice system, the failures of the British education system to teach honest imperial history, the construction of racial identity, the far right's resurgence, and the sexual objectification bound up with racialised stereotypes. Rather than treating race and class as separate issues, Akala insists they are deeply intertwined, and uses comparative examples from the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States to illustrate how British exceptionalism obscures its own colonial record. The result is neither a conventional memoir nor a straightforward political tract, but a hybrid work that has been widely praised for making complex historical and sociological arguments approachable without diluting their force. First published in 2018, the book struck a chord well beyond its original audience and saw a fresh surge of interest and bestseller status following renewed global conversations about race in 2020. It remains a widely recommended text in schools, universities and reading groups grappling wi