This book takes a deep look into people held captive in their own lands by the imperialization of the British Empire. This perspective is the antithesis of the traditional education that a lot of us were given during school. The words of the people that experienced imperialism in a negative way are loud and moving. As an American, I am pretty proficient in the history of colonialism here. I also learned a great deal about the British Empire in India. I really appreciated this book and the information it contained about the British Empire in the Mediterranean, which is something I knew very little about. I also really appreciated all of the personal accounts in this book, because the experiences of people on the ground are so valuable to the historical record.

The book read really well. There were a lot of points where it read like a historical fiction book. It was very entertaining, but also very educational. I think most of us are familiar with the colonization of various places during the Age of Imperialism, so this book does not really come as new and shocking information. The biggest takeaway I had from this book was hearing about the effects of colonization from the words of people who were living on the other end of it- the colonized. It was a bit different to the generic "these lands were colonized for these products" type of lesson that we received several times throughout middle school up to college. I really enjoyed this book a lot.