What Britain Did to Nigeria

Most accounts of Nigeria's colonisation were written by British officials, presenting it as a noble civilising mission to rid Africans of barbaric superstition and corrupt tribal leadership. Thanks to this skewed writing of history, many Nigerians today still have Empire nostalgia and view the colonial period through rose-tinted glasses.

Max Siollun offers a bold rethink: an unromanticised history, arguing compellingly that colonialism had few benevolent intentions but many unjust outcomes. It may have ended slavery and human sacrifice, but it was accompanied by extreme violence; ethnic and religious identity were cynically exploited to maintain control, while the forceful remoulding of longstanding legal and social practices permanently altered the culture and internal politics of indigenous communities. The aftershocks of this colonial meddling are still being felt decades after independence. Popular narratives often suggest that the economic and political turmoil are homegrown, but the reality is that Britain created many of Nigeria's crises, and has left them behind for Nigerians to resolve.

This is a definitive, head-on confrontation with Nigeria's experience under British rule, showing how it forever changed the country - perhaps cataclysmically.

'Brings [a] much needed African viewpoint to [Nigeria's] colonial history.' - Financial Times

'[A] fascinating new study...offering a cogent analysis of the development of slavery and the lucrative trade in rubber, in palm oil...and the wholesale exploitation involved.' - RT Culture Online

'Siollun's evenhanded assessment of the roughly 60 years of colonial rule that followed is...absorbing.' - Foreign Affairs

What Britain Did to Nigeria is a nuanced, informative and timely book that powerfully captures the complexity of the colonial impact.' - Olivette Otele, author of African Europeans: An Untold History

'The British Empire is often presented as an endeavour that conquered territory, carried out atrocities and looted resources. Max Siollun's What Britain Did to Nigeria provides some evidence to support that case. But Siollun also provides much-needed nuance: British colonialism in Nigeria was characterised by a tension between the colonial government and the work of missionaries.' - History Today