A Short History of Slavery by James Walvin (Penguin, 2007). A concise history of slavery, from the ancient world to the present day, with a particular focus on the Atlantic slave trade. Professor James Walvin’s authoritative book, drawing on historical texts that recreate the mindset that made such a savage institution possible, is an excellent starting point for anyone wishing to understand one of the most shameful chapters in British history.

Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga (Macmillan, 2016). A milestone history of Britain, for the first time placing people from Africa and the Caribbean fairly and squarely into the national picture, revealing their long-standing economic and cultural contribution to these islands, and demonstrating that the lives of black and white Britons have been entwined for centuries.

Black and British: A Short Essential History by David Olusoga (Macmillan Children’s Books, 2020). A report in 2020 found that the national curriculum in England ‘systematically omits the contribution of Black British history’; schools may mark Black History Month each October, but this isn’t enough to ensure that all children receive a proper grounding in Black history. This edition of David Olusoga’s Black and British has been revised and rewritten especially for secondary school children.

Blood Legacy by Alex Renton (Canongate, 2021). Through the story of his own family’s history as slave owners, Alex Renton looks at how we owe it to the present to understand the legacy of the past. When British Caribbean slavery was abolished in 1833, it was not the liberated who received compensation, but the enslavers who were paid millions of pounds in government money. Blood Legacy explores the inheritance – political, economic, moral and spiritual – that has been passed to the descendants of the slave owners and the descendants of the enslaved. He also asks, crucially, how the former – himself among them – can begin to make reparations for the past.

Brit(ish) by Afua Hirsch (Jonathan Cape, 2018). We are a nation in denial about our imperial past and the racism that plagues our present. This book is a deeply personal and provocative exploration of how this came to be, and an urgent call for change.

Britain’s Black Debt by Hilary Beckles (University of the West Indies Press, 2013). This is the first scholarly work that looks comprehensively at the origins and development of the reparations discussion as a regional and international process in the Caribbean. Beckles sets out a solid academic analysis of the evidence – and concludes that Britain has a case to answer.

Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams (Penguin, 2022). Williams became the first Prime Minister of independent Trinidad & Tobago. As a young historian he turned his Oxford University doctoral thesis into a book (first published in 1944) that rocked Britain, and is still vibrant and relevant today. He was the first historian to show how Britain’s industrial revolution had been powered by the exploitation of enslaved Africans in the British Caribbean colonies.

Freedom by Catherine Johnson (Scholastic Children’s Books, 2018). For 10–13 year olds. Nathaniel is brought from Jamaica to England solely to tend pineapple plants aboard ship by masters who have sold off his mother and sister. Believing that all slaves are free on English soil, Nat looks forward to making his fortune and buying back his family; swiftly disillusioned, he begins to plan his escape. At times harrowing (especially during its description of the Zong court case in 1783), the story is also filled with humour, compassion and hope.

How Britain Underdeveloped the Caribbean: A Reparation Response to Europe’s Legacy of Plunder and Poverty by Hilary Beckles (University of the West Indies Press, 2021). This book is a welcome survey of the history of British domination in the Caribbean and the persisting and unheeded call for reparations. Beckles focuses his attention on the British Empire, showing how successive governments have systematically suppressed economic development in their former colonies, and have refused to accept responsibility for the debt and development support they owe the Caribbean.

Labour in the West Indies: The Birth of a Worker’s Movement by Arthur Lewis (New Beacon Books, 1977). This account of the Caribbean labour movement in the 1930s was originally published in 1939 by Gollancz and the Fabian Society. It captures the sense of progress and hope emerging from the general strikes and workers’ insurrections that took place across the English-speaking Caribbean between 1935 and 1938.

Mr Atkinson’s Rum Contract by Richard Atkinson (Fourth Estate, 2020). The rise and fall of a family’s sugar fortune – from the peak of the slave trade in the 1780s to the aftermath of emancipation in the 1850s – set against the panoramic backdrop of some of the most momentous episodes in British colonial history. Drawing deeply on his ancestors’ private correspondence, Richard Atkinson pieces together their unsettling story, from the weather-beaten ancestral house in Cumbria to the crumbling stone ruins of their Jamaican sugar estates, uncovering the darkest family secrets along the way.

Musical Truth: A Musical History of Modern Black Britain in 28 Songs by Jeffrey Boakye (Faber & Faber, 2021). Boakye draws on his knowledge and experience as a teacher to explore songs that reveal ‘crucial aspects of British history, the empire and postcolonialism’. The book includes songs such as Stormzy’s ‘Vossi Bop’, Neneh Cherry’s ‘Buffalo Stance’ and So Solid Crew’s ‘21 Seconds’. There’s even a YouTube playlist which you can listen to while you read the book.

Slave Wales: The Welsh and Atlantic Slavery 1660–1850 by Chris Evans (University of Wales Press, 2010). Although slavery is hardly mentioned in traditional histories of the country, Wales was deeply affected by the forced migration of captive Africans, as Evans reveals. Welsh copper and brass were used to purchase slaves, Welsh woollens clothed the enslaved and the profits flowed back into Wales to be invested in new industries or lavished on country mansions.

The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James (Secker & Warburg, 1938). The classic history of the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804. James’s Marxist analysis of the Haitian Revolution puts enslaved people at the centre of their own story, demonstrating that their freedom came out of their collective mobilisation and not as a result of the goodwill of abolitionists. He focuses on the remarkable leadership of Toussaint, which brought about the end of enslavement in Haiti.

The Book of The Night Women by Marlon James (One World, 2014). The Booker Prize winner – the contemporary Caribbean’s greatest novelist – tells a story of women in eighteenth-century Jamaican plantation life under the British that is as gripping as it is horrifying. Extraordinary research and passion makes it entirely credible – and unputdownable.

The Interest: How the British Establishment Resisted the Abolition of Slavery by Michael Taylor (Bodley Head, 2020). A devastating and encyclopaedic account of the struggle to end slavery: ‘For two hundred years, the abolition of slavery has been a cause for self-congratulation – but no longer.’

The Jamaican Diaries of Robert Hibbert 1772–80 (volume 1) and 1787–1802 (volume 2) by Nick Hibbert Steele (2020, 2023). Part genealogy, part social history, the previously unpublished diaries of a major figure in the transatlantic slave trade, with contemporary sources and biographical notes on the mercantile world of the late eighteenth century.

The Sugar Barons by Matthew Parker (Hutchinson, 2011). The compelling story of the Caribbean sugar islands and the outrageous fortunes generated for a small number of proprietors – notably the Codringtons and the Draxes in Barbados and the Beckfords in Jamaica – by hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans. This vividly narrated tale sets the historical scene for the deep inequities which continue to plague Caribbean and postcolonial European societies alike.

What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition by Emma Dabiri (Penguin, 2021). Written by an academic of Irish-Nigerian heritage, this inspiring short book sets out with great wit and clarity how privileged people who want to address racism and inequality in modern Britain can do it. If they dare.

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (Penguin, 2019). In this powerfully argued book DiAngelo – a white academic who ran diversity training for businesses – shows how we can start having more honest conversations about race, listen to each other better, and react to feedback with grace and humility, ultimately demonstrating that it’s time all white people took responsibility for relinquishing their own racial supremacy.

Windrush Child by Benjamin Zephaniah (Scholastic Children’s Books, 2020). For 9–11 year olds. The story starts in 1960s Britain, when Leonard arrives with his mother from Jamaica, and ends in 2018, when he is denied citizenship of the country where he has lived all his life. By one of the UK’s greatest poets and writers, a brilliant book to make children and adults think hard about our history, about racism, about fairness, about politics – and also about the bravery of unsung heroes.

Women Against Slavery: The British Campaigns 1780–1870 by Clare Midgley (Routledge, 1995). This study of female anti-slavery campaigners fills a serious gap in abolitionist history, and is an important contribution to the debate on race and gender. Clare Midgley builds up a vivid picture of the lives, words and actions of the women involved, and their distinctive contribution to the abolitionist movement.