How do you see Britain?
That
might depend on your point of view, and as long time British foreign
correspondent, Michael Peel has come to understand, it can look very
different from outside.
It's tempting to think of the UK as a
fundamentally stable and successful nation. But events of the past few
years, from Brexit to exposés of imperial history, have begun to spark
fierce public debates about whether that is true. Is Britain, just a
marginal northern European island nation, marked by injustices,
corruption and with a bloody history of slavery, repression and looting?
And
yet UK politics, media, and public opinion live constantly in the
shadow of old myths, Second World War era nostalgia, and a belief in
supposedly core British values of tolerance, decency and fair play.
British politicians regularly exploit a damaging complacency that holds
that everything will turn out okay, because, in Britain, it always does.
In
WHAT EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT BRITAIN, Michael Peel digs into the national
consciousness with the perspective of distance to pull apart the ways in
which we British have become unmoored from crucial truths about
ourselves. He shows us that from many perspectives we are no different
from other countries whose own national delusions have seen them succumb
to abuses of power, increased poverty and divisive conflict.
The
battle over Britain's narrative is the struggle for its future and its
place in the world. So, how do we escape the trick mirror - and see
ourselves as we really are?
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