A bestselling British author's American debut-in this brilliantly illuminating work exploring the realities and legacies of empire, Sathnam Sanghera demonstrates how so much of what we consider to be modern Britain is actually rooted in its imperial past. In prose that is at once both clear-eyed and full of acerbic wit, Sanghera shows how the past is everywhere in the United Kingdom, also drawing critical links to similarities in the United States and around the world. Empire-British or otherwise-informs nearly everything, from common thought processes to the routines that shape everyday life, from the foundation of the National Health Service (NHS), to the nature of racism in the UK, from the British distrust of intellectuals in public life to the exceptionalism that imbued the campaign for Brexit, and the government's early response to the Covid crisis-all while empire is a subject shockingly obscured from view. Revelatory and lucid, Sanghera suggests that cultivating a new, more honest relationship to the past is essential in moving forward"--