While I rather enjoyed this book at the start, it then morphed into something that wasn't the book I'd started reading and liked. At some point, it kinda felt like a very woke lens on history - which has its place and need, but it wasn't the book I'd signed up to read, and not the book I started reading and enjoying. It stopped being about history and more about racism and people of colour being crushed every which way as from the 20th century - which is true, yes, but I went in expecting a broad lens on the history we're not taught/we don't get to see, and the partisan angle felt a bit like it was being rammed down my throat at some point, where the read stopped being enjoyable, to be honest.

The History Lessons by Shalina Patel is a whistlestop tour of history in bite-size chunks, but with an overarching theme of reclaiming untold stories and voices beyond the usual narratives.

Patel whisks us through ancient to modern British history, adding extra context exploring the rest of the world, and with a specific emphasis on shining a light on the lives and contributions of diverse people throughout time. We learn about real people like Licoricia of Winchester, an anglo-Jewish, highly educated woman in medieval England who was imprisoned in the tower of London, or Sophia Dulip Singh, Indian princess and goddaughter to Queen Victoria, who also happened to be a prominent suffragette who put herself in harm’s way to protect other women.

No history book can be all encompassing, and I enjoyed the premise of learning more about those topics that would have been touched on in school, and those that weren’t but should have been, like the impact of empire, the forgotten allies of WWI and WWII and the British civil rights movement. The ability to revisit something we know a little about, and have our understanding broadened to include those who are often written out of history was really appealing to me.

I think one of the best things about this book is the storytelling. Overviews of vast swathes of history tend to focus on dry headline facts, but Patel weaves the personal into every topic – focusing on small details as well as large events, understanding that so many different people’s contributions helped shape the world we live in today. What stayed with me was how cavalier leaders of Britain have often been with the lives of others – structural racism on the grandest scale – and how brave and tireless and pivotal so many people have been in the face of that oppression to make change for the better.

The History Lessons is out now – thank you so much to Icon Books for gifting me a copy in return for an honest review.

I would like to thank netgalley and Icon Books for a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this! A brilliant look into lesser known histories. I also highly recommend the authors Instagram.