Our Island Stories

Fowler’s book is essential reading in our current politics of division, fear, and vile inflammatory rhetoric excluding people who do not fit into increasingly narrow definitions of Britishness * The Manchester Review *This compassionate, measured account - which does not shy away from the inevitable controversy of its subject, but never embraces easy or pat answers - offers an eloquent vision of how imperialism has come to define our green and pleasant land * The Observer *Our Island Stories engagingly mingles chatty or lyrical travelogue with digests of scholarly research. It aims for — and deserves to reach — a wide and open-minded readership – Boyd Tonkin * Financial Times *Hers is a remarkable piece of scholarship, for she has delved into areas which have not been previously explored by historians – Amit Roy * Eastern Eye *This is an essential and fascinating book because it brings to light, through conversations and nature walks, some of the buried connections between Britain’s landscape and historic buildings and its complicated hidden histories. Fowler does not judge or diminish, but enriches and deepens our understanding of this nation * Bernardine Evaristo *This is real, difficult, essential history delivered in the most eloquent and accessible way. Her case, that rural Britain has been shaped by imperialism, is unanswerable, and she makes her arguments beautifully. An important book. – Sathnam Sanghera * author of Empireland *A detailed and thoughtful exploration of historical connections that for too long have been obscured. A powerful book that brings the history of the Empire home – literally – David Olusoga

Corinne Fowler is Professor of Colonialism and Heritage in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester. Between 2018 and 2022, Fowler directed a child-led history and writing project called ‘Colonial Countryside- National Trust Houses Reinterpreted’. She also co-authored the 2020 National Trust report on its country houses’ historical links to the British Empire. Her most recent book is Green Unpleasant Land- Creative Responses to Rural England’s Colonial Connections.