And I wrote down your words - (reading) having faced up to how Britain has shaped and defined my life in deep ways, I had never realized - I can't help but wonder - how imperialism may have shaped modern Britain itself. You're from a Sikh family, grew up in Wolverhampton. A good portion of the book is phrased as a personal journey. So I think to understand American history, you really do have to understand British Empire as well. You know, in 1899, you had Theodore Roosevelt talking about how the colonization of India had done great things for the English character if we do as well in the Philippines, in the West Indies, it'd be good for us, too. Britain's racist imperialism also inspired America's own racist imperialism. And, you know, the enslaved who ended up in America did so largely due to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which the British Empire dominated. The Puritans who ended up on your side of the Atlantic, you know, they were escaping religious persecution, but they were British. You know, the 13 colonies were a distinct phase of British colonialism. SANGHERA: Yeah, I mean, America likes to think of itself as anti-colonial, but America itself is a creation of the British Empire. readers, which says - if I might paraphrase - just because you guys rebelled against the British Empire in 1776 doesn't mean the story doesn't apply to you. SIMON: You've got an opening chapter added for and addressing U.S. Sathnam Sanghera joins us now from London. His new book, 'Empireland,' has been acclaimed in Britain and just published in the United States. Author and journalist Sathnam Sanghera believes that Britain and the rest of the world should learn more of it. A lot of history - Indian, British, African, empire - is packed into that one sentence. The prime minister of Britain, Rishi Sunak, was born in Southampton to Hindu parents of Indian Punjabi descent who were born in Southeast Africa and immigrated to Britain.

Sathnam sanghera empire