Book Reviews

摘要

In The Invisible Empire, Georgie Wemyss examines a selection of episodes from the, generally recent, history of Tower Hamlets in order to demonstrate how the dominant 'White liberal discourse' persistently glosses over the brutal realities of Britain's imperial record, obscuring past and present power relations. She argues that this has allowed the development of an authoritative Britishness in which non-White subjects are at the bottom of a 'hierarchy of belonging'. The study joins an established field of critical post-colonial writing and follows the well-worn paths of Foucault's discourse theory and Gramsci's ideas of hegemony. While it can hardly be presented as breaking new ground, it provides detailed empirical evidence at a time when such ideas are feeling the attack of a resurgent revisionism.