Ordinary items take on new meanings when you cast them in different light. The origins of tea, coffee and sugar are well known, but when you discover that gym treadmills were pioneered on plantations or that denim jeans were once clothing for enslaved people, you can't help but ask where else the legacy of slavery hides in plain sight.
Through the stories of thirty-nine everyday places and objects, Renay Richardson and Arisa Loomba unpick the threads of the history that we never learned in school, revealing the truth of how Britain's present is bound to a darker past.
Taking us from art galleries to football stands, banks to hospitals, from grand country houses to the backs of our kitchen cupboards, Human Resources is an eye-opening inquiry that gives a voice to the enslaved people who built modern Britain.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
An important, eye-opening piece of work we should all read * Sunday Post * Short, snappy ... Human Resources whizzes from topic to topic, making its case succinctly and arguing that until we deal honestly and directly with the realities of the past , however painful they might be, it will continue to hamper our ability to tackle systematic inequalities today * Irish Times * An eye-opening, necessary and endlessly engaging account -- Waterstones Blog I wish everyone in the UK would read this book. It's good politics, good history, good writing. Renay Richardson and Arisa Loomba reveal the quite astonishing extent to which our daily lives and systems are steeped in slavery's bloody legacy. From indigo to accountancy, gynaecology to gravity, these 39 pithy, well-researched cases are the ultimate rejoinder to anyone who claims this history doesn't matter -- Oskar Jensen, author * Vagabonds * A brilliantly researched exploration of how the transatlantic slave trade has shaped our lives and continues to do so. I highly recommend this accessible and informative account -- Stephen Bourne, author * Black Poppies * A refreshingly perceptive and important addition to British historiography -- Ron Ramdin, author * The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain * Praise for the Human Resources podcast: '[An] illuminating series that provides an important corrective to what we have been told about our history ... shows why this history remains so vital nearly 200 years after abolition -- Fiona Sturges * FT * An unexplored trip down memory lane, presenting fascinating insights -- Danielle Stephens * Guardian * If you want to make sense of the ongoing push to decolonise areas of public life and reckon with Britain's role in the slave trade ... then this is an engaging, typically thoughtful way of doing it * Esquire *
Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Für höhere Schule und Studium
Für Beruf und Forschung
Produkt-Hinweis
Dateigröße
ISBN-13
978-1-80081-624-4 (9781800816244)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Renay Richardson is an award-winning producer based in London. Her work focuses on empowering audiences and creating social change.
Arisa Loomba is a PhD student of Global and Imperial History at the University of Oxford, working in partnership with the National Trust.
