A Short History of Power

A Short History of Power is an eye-opening book about how societies are designed to support those in power, at the expense of those without it.

Colonial Power
In the 1950s, over 10,000 Kenyans were killed by the British during the Mau Mau uprising against a government determined to install a sympathetic post-independence regime and continue to exploit the resources of its former colonies.

Patriarchal Power
After the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic systematically removed freedoms from women, relegating them to second-class citizens in the name of religious teachings.

Educational Power
There have been fifty-seven prime ministers of the United Kingdom, of whom forty-three have been privately educated, creating a society built by and for the privileged.

These are just some of the stories through which Dr Jack Davy illustrates the key factors that allow societies to create and sustain oppressive systems. Some are historical. Others have played out right before our eyes over the last decade. All are rooted in the systems in which we all participate. Read this book, and take action.

'Sharp and insightful. Jack Davy makes complex ideas accessible in this powerful book about the roots of inequality.' — Caroline Dodds Pennock, author of On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe

'A deeply humane book with true hope in its message.' — Ray Mattinson, Blackwells