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  • Uncommon Wealth

  • Britain and the Aftermath of Empire
  • By: Kojo Koram
  • Narrated by: Kojo Koram
  • Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (96 ratings)
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Uncommon Wealth

By: Kojo Koram
Narrated by: Kojo Koram
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Summary

Britain didn't just put the empire back the way it had found it.

In Uncommon Wealth, Kojo Koram traces the tale of how, after the end of the British empire, an interconnected group of well-heeled British intellectuals, politicians, accountants and lawyers offshored their capital, seized assets and saddled debt in former 'dependencies'. This enabled horrific inequality across the globe, as ruthless capitalists profited and ordinary people across Britain's former territories in colonial Africa, Asia and the Caribbean were trapped in poverty. However, the reinforcement of capitalist power across the world also ricocheted back home. Now it has left many Britons wondering where their own sovereignty and prosperity has gone....

Decolonisation was not just a trendy buzzword. It was one of the great global changes of the past hundred years, yet Britain - the protagonist in the whole messy drama - has forgotten it was ever even there. A blistering uncovering of the scandal of Britain's disastrous treatment of independent countries after empire, Uncommon Wealth shows the decisions of decades past are contributing to the forces that are breaking Britain today.

©2022 Kojo Koram (P)2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic reviews

"Brilliantly arranged and rich with fresh insights, Uncommon Wealth reminds us how the forgotten stories of empire and decolonisation continue to impact our daily lives in Britain - and throughout the world - up to today." (Akala)

What listeners say about Uncommon Wealth

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Read this book, it's good.

I really enjoyed this, it is beautifully written and read by the author; it was for me a lot of disparate threads that I was more or less aware of, woven together in a (to me) novel and highly instructive way. I found I understood a lot of things differently by the end of the book, and I felt strongly how lacking my British education has been in so many areas.

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5 people found this helpful

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Decolonising everything benefits you!

The theses of this book are old.

That poverty is not innate to Africa or Asia but is a consequence of an extractive economic system in which Euro-American, Asian and African elites collaborate to the detriment of billions of working class people.

That the tactics of empire - old or new - all too often come home to roost, whether it’s the deployment of anti-Mau Mau tactics in Northern Ireland or the disciplining of labour and the dismantling of state provision of basic services to yield higher profits.

That the culture wars being waged by the ruling class and their media talking heads is a distraction - that irrelevances such as removing portraits of the queen or even arguing about street names covers up the on-going robbery both of British working class people and the former subjects of empire by the capitalists.

It’s accessible,it threw in a few details about Jamaican and Singaporean political history I didn’t know, the authors voice is pretty mellifluous, all in all this gets a good rating from me.

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2 people found this helpful

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Highly Recommend Reading

A really easy read which helps to explain the connection between empire and its legacy and the ever increasing wealth inequality that exists not just in the world but within our nations and cities.

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1 person found this helpful

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Uncommonwealth

liked the detailed history of key events abroad. Also how events in the past are influencing 21st century UK.

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    5 out of 5 stars

Important work with utterly terrible narration

This is a very important and interesting piece of academic work analysing the legacy of the British Empire. Very interesting and informative. However the narration is absolutely dreadful. Given he wrote the book, the narrator sounds like he’s never actually seen the text before - he sounds surprised every other sentence by the words on the page. Slow, disjointed, and littered with errors in pronunciation. A shame really because it detracts terribly from the content.

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Lacks serious content and research

I've read lots of books on the topics touched by this author, and so I don't disagree with the message or point of the book. But the concept of linking historical events to current situations almost directly, with no supporting evidence or serious discussions, means that this book is just an opinion piece with a lot of unnecessarily long winded speaches.

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Excellent book everyone should listen to it.

A good look at the history of the British empire and it's legacy. A subject few British people know about. Well narrated by the writer.

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Excellent

A very engaging book which very helpfully unfolded a comprehensive account of the legacies of the British empire that we all need to hear. I liked the insight into the authors own perspectives from his cultural heritage in Ghana. A brilliant account

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Thought-provoking, beautifully written.

An excellent historical context to the recent events that have shaped our lives. Essential reading!

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Great reading of a great book

bought the book after listening to Kojo’s thoughtful interview on the excellent podcast ‘The Dig’ with Daniel Denvir, am glad I did.

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