How does Liverpool tell a new and more radical history of Britain? Liverpool’s extraordinary history is a story of a post-colonial society made obsolete by the changing global economy. Yet it’s also a story of resistance, from the anti-colonial agitation of the 1940-50s to the feminists-led rent strikes of the 1970s and the multi-racial protestors who battled police in 1981’s Toxteth Uprising.
Join us for the London launch of Liverpool and the Un-Making of Britain – a major new historical work by Sam Wetherell, who will be joined in conversation by the historian and journalist John Merrick.
We will ask how our present moment of simultaneous, political, economic and ecological crises might fundamentally change how we think about Britain’s modern history. We need histories of worklessness rather than labour, of environmental ruin rather than planning, of policing rather than welfare, of disintegration rather than hegemony.
But we can also find hope in stories of joy and resistance unburdened by the heavy-handed moralism and withered political imagination of recent electoral high-politics — precedents that confront rather than enable the far-right political violence erupting on Britain’s streets.
For all of these reasons and more, Liverpool is both a warning and a beacon of hope for Britain’s future. Join us for an evening of fascinating discussion, followed by a social.
You can read a review of the book in the Financial Times (Paywall)
Admission is free, though donations to support Pelican House are welcome!
☀️ Arrive from 6pm
📚 Discussion begins 7pm
💬 Social from 8:30pm
The venue has level access throughout and an accessible toilet.