Human Resources

Slavery and the Making of Modern Britain - in 39 Institutions, People, Places and Things

By: Renay Richardson, Arisa Loomba

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Paperback | 1 September 2026

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Paperback
336 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.6 x 12.8 x 2.3

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Ordinary items take on new meanings when you cast them in different light.

The origins of tea, coffee and sugar are well known, but when you discover that gym treadmills were pioneered on plantations or that denim jeans were once clothing for enslaved people, you can't help but ask where else the legacy of slavery hides in plain sight.
Through the stories of thirty-nine everyday places and objects, Renay Richardson and Arisa Loomba unpick the threads of the history that we never learned in school, revealing the truth of how Britain's present is bound to a darker past.
Taking us from art galleries to football stands, banks to hospitals, from grand country houses to the backs of our kitchen cupboards, Human Resources is an eye-opening inquiry that gives a voice to the enslaved people who built modern Britain.

A brilliantly researched exploration of how the transatlantic slave trade has shaped our lives and continues to do so. I highly recommend this accessible and informative account -- Stephen Bourne, author â Black Poppies

A refreshingly perceptive and important addition to British historiography -- Ron Ramdin, author â The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain

Praise for the Human Resources podcast: '[An] illuminating series that provides an important corrective to what we have been told about our history ... shows why this history remains so vital nearly 200 years after abolition -- Fiona Sturges â FT

An unexplored trip down memory lane, presenting fascinating insights -- Danielle Stephens â Guardian

If you want to make sense of the ongoing push to decolonise areas of public life and reckon with Britain's role in the slave trade ... then this is an engaging, typically thoughtful way of doing it â Esquire

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