Empire and race have become the most discussed – and most problematic – subjects in political and historical discourse. It is now an unquestionable orthodoxy both in academia and in progressive political discourse that European colonial empires – particularly the British – were uniquely evil, the West's 'original sin', and that their legacy continues to underpin systemic racism, injustice, and oppression. Marie Kawthar Daouda, a Moroccan and French academic who now lives in Britain, argues that this narrative is dangerously wrong. Weaving her personal experience with erudite reflection on history, literature, and politics, she argues that we are all heirs of complex waves of immigration, conquest, and colonization. A closer look at French and British history belies a simplistic worldview wherein all the evil in the world is the result of the peculiarly vicious nature of white, Western colonizers. Indeed, she argues, such a perspective nurtures the very prejudices it claims to fight by