An updated edition with new material of the acclaimed re-examination of a shared history, telling the rich and revealing story of the long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa and the Caribbean.

There is nothing simple about the idea of civilisation. It is a concept with multiple and contested meanings. Prefix it with the word 'western' and you have a whole new set of problems. Equally thorny is the belief, once commonplace, that civilisation was a singular project, a phenomenon that spread across parts of the world from a single source. The view that multiple civilisations emerged independently at various times and in various places across the world was not an idea many Victorian thinkers had much time for. Indeed, in the age of European Empires, nations justified their domination of other peoples by claiming they were engaged in a great 'civilising mission'. Perhaps all that is certain about the concept of civilisation is that its opposite, barbarism, is toxic. In Civilisations, David Olusoga travels the world to piece together the shared histories that link nations. In Part One, First Contact, we discover what happened to art in the great Age of Discovery, when civilisations encountered each other for the first time? Although undoubtedly a period of conquest and destruction it was also one of mutual curiosity, global trade and the exchange of ideas In Part Two, The Cult of Progress we see how the Industrial Revolution transformed the world, impacting every corner, and every civilisation, from the cotton mills of the Midlands, through Napoleon's conquest of Egypt, to the demise of both Native American and Maori populations and the advent of photography in Paris in 1839. Incredible art - both looted and created - relay the key events and their outcomes throughout the world.

From Roman times to the present day this is the story of Black British history.

A tie-in to the acclaimed BBC television series.

Did you know that Aretha Franklin was the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Or that the first accounts of a Black samurai in Japan date back almost 500 years ago? From the reign of Great Zimbabwe in medieval Africa to the establishment of Juneteenth as a national US holiday in 2021, there is so much to discover about Black history and the people who have shaped it.

Written by David Olusoga, one of the best-known historians in the UK, and his siblings, professor Yinka Olusoga and artist/illustrator Kemi Olusoga, Black History for Every Day of the Year will give you new insights on the impacts of Black history on our society today. With one entry for every day of the year, including leap day, you'll learn about unsung heroes from history, as well as contemporary figures and events, including:

• Activists: Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Toussaint L'Ouverture
• Athletes: Simone Biles, Jackie Robinson, Venus and Serena Williams
• Authors and poets: Amanda Gorman, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin
• Musicians: Beyoncé, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder
• Public Figures and Politicians: Ketanji Brown Jackson, Kofi Annan, Kamala Harris
• Scientists: Katherine Johnson, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Alice Ball
• Movies and Art: Black Panther, Moonlight, The Benin Bronzes
• Events: the Selma to Montgomery Marches, the Tulsa Race Massacre, the Civil Rights Act of 1964

With hope and celebration alongside tales of racism and resistance, Black History for Every Day of the Year will give you something new to learn every day and change the way you view world history.

Winner of the 2017 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize
Winner of the Longman History Today Trustees' Award
A Waterstones History Book of the Year
Longlisted for the Orwell Prize
Shortlisted for the inaugural Jhalak Prize

'Groundbreaking' - Observer

In this vital re-examination of a shared history, historian and broadcaster David Olusoga tells the rich and revealing story of the long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa and the Caribbean.

This edition, fully revised and updated, features a new chapter encompassing the Windrush scandal and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, events which put black British history at the centre of urgent national debate. Black and British is vivid confirmation that black history can no longer be kept separate and marginalised. It is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation and it belongs to us all.

Drawing on new genealogical research, original records, and expert testimony, Black and British reaches back to Roman Britain, the medieval imagination, Elizabethan 'blackamoors' and the global slave-trading empire. It shows that the great industrial boom of the nineteenth century was built on American slavery, and that black Britons fought at Trafalgar and in the trenches of both World Wars. Black British history is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation. It is not a singular history, but one that belongs to us all.

Unflinching, confronting taboos, and revealing hitherto unknown scandals, Olusoga describes how the lives of black and white Britons have been entwined for centuries.

'[A] comprehensive and important history of black Britain . . . Written with a wonderful clarity of style and with great force and passion.' - Sunday Times

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