I was sad that I couldn't top off my 2017 with this but ah well, it's a great way to start the New Year, if by great you mean harrowing, jarring, upsetting, but ultimately brilliant.

I would call this a book of demystifying various notions of the presence and significance of black Britons in history. For example, a commonly held view is that mass migration of the black population of our small isles happened when the Windrush weighed anchor in 1948. While it's a symbolic settlement of 492 people, it's one tiny fraction of the story. Olusoga takes us through personal experiences of his home being attacked and his family terrorised by the National Front, for example, but the bulk of the book is charting the interrelation of black people with Britain from as early as the Roman Empire. Of course, slavery is no alien to this book and some of the most fascinating parts are during the exploration of that dark part of our history.

Also brilliantly done is to be critical of colonial notions and hypocrisies. I was struck how there were scenes in the early 20th century that had haunting echoes to present day violence and representation of race-relations. The connection isn't made until the end of the book but I found myself muttering "this isn't much different now!" (especially with the notion of how migrants are perceived--sub in people from the Middle East when doing censuses of black people in the 50s, for example, and the attitudes and language used is near-identical). But I digress! I could continue about this for a good while, but I would just say read it and be shocked and enlightened.

One gripe I have is with figures. Olusoga writes out complex figures in text not in numerical form and it resists the eye quite a bit (so "two-hundred and thirty nine" instead of "239"). That can make it pretty slow-going. Other than that, wow.

This book will stay with me for a long time.