Empire’s Children: Trace Your Family History Across the World
Описание книги
From the makers of 'Who Do You Think You Are?' comes 'Empire's Children' – a tie-in edition to a six part TV series for Channel 4 – which tells the story of Empire, and follows the personal journeys of six British celebrities as they retrace their steps through their multicultural past.British society is in every way defined by its Imperial past. It is home to 2.3 million British Asians, 570,000 Caribbeans and 250,000 Chinese. Not to mention Cypriots, Australians and southern Africans. These people represent different cultures and divergent experiences but they all share a common heritage: they are the children (grandchildren, or great grandchildren) of Empire; and their lives have been shaped by that legacy.In the second part of the 20th century, Britain relinquished control of 64 countries and half a billion subjects. During that period, many thousands of those same former British subjects fled their homes to build new lives here.What were they hoping to find? Why did they want to come to the very country they'd fought so hard to free themselves from? What kinds of lives were they leaving behind? What was the reality of their new life here? And how was British society itself shaped by their arrival and assimilation here? Real concerns that are very much in forefront of our minds in the multicultural melting pot that Britain is today.‘Empire’s Children’ seeks to answer these questions by concentrating on the personal and emotive journeys of six chosen celebrities as they retrace the steps which they – or their parents or grandparents – took in order to reach this country for the first time. The stories will cover post colonial histories of Africa, the subcontinent, the West Indies, Australasia, South East Asia and Cyprus. In some cases, they will spend some time in the former colony and experience the motivations as well as the drama of the journey itself.
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Anton Gill. Empire’s Children: Trace Your Family History Across the World
EMPIRE’S CHILDREN. TRACE YOUR FAMILY HISTORY. ACROSS THE WORLD. ANTON GILL
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
PROLOGUE
PART ONE ‘RULE BRITANNIA’
CHAPTER ONE GOLD AND PLUNDER
CHAPTER TWO TRIUMPH AND DISASTER
CHAPTER THREE THE SECOND EMPIRE
PART TWO ‘ALMOST INEVITABLE CONSEQUENCES’
CHAPTER FOUR WAR AND PEACE
CHAPTER FIVE BEARING UP, BEARING DOWN
PART THREE ‘TIS NOT TOO LATE TO SEEK A NEWER WORLD’
CHAPTER SIX THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH
CHAPTER SEVEN LETTING GO: INDIA
CHAPTER EIGHT TO SEEK ANEWER WORLD
CHAPTER NINE LETTING GO: THE CARIBBEAN AND AFRICA
CHAPTER TEN AFTER THE RAJ: IMMIGRATION FROM SOUTH ASIA
EPILOGUE
RESOURCES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1: Empire
2: Immigration
WEBSITES
PLACES
CURRENT MEMBER STATES OF THE. COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS-HEAD: Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain
Members:
BRITISH MONARCHS (REGNAL YEARS) FROM 1760:
BRITISH PRIME MINISTERS (YEARS IN OFFICE WITH POLITICAL AFFILIATION) FROM 1762:
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OTHER WORKS
COPYRIGHT
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Отрывок из книги
FOR J.A.
(gratefully)
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ABUSE OF COLONIZED PEOPLES AND OF FORMER SLAVES CONTINUED EVEN LONGER. IN SOME PLACES, IT CONTINUES TODAY.
By the end of the eighteenth century, an abolition movement gathered momentum in Britain. A medallion was struck by the pottery magnate Josiah Wedgwood in the 1790s showing a kneeling, chained slave, and bearing the legend ‘Am I not a man and a brother?’, which did much to popularize the cause; and its supporters succeeded in bringing about an end to the slave trade and then slavery itself by Acts of Parliament passed in 1807 and 1833. The institution itself did not die out instantly. It lingered long in India, and in the former British colonies in America it would survive for another thirty years at least. And abuse of colonized peoples and of former slaves continued even longer. In some places, it continues today. The descendants of slaves, of course, form the majority of the populations of the Caribbean states today.
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