Inside the Black Box of 'White Backlash'

<p><em>Inside the Black Box of ‘White Backlash’</em> researches the contents of the letters of support sent to British politician Enoch Powell in the wake of his so-called ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech of April 20 1968.</p><p>Never has a politician received so much written support in so short a time. This book takes a thematic approach to investigate the way British whites used Powell’s speech to vent their frustrations anger hostility against (non-white) immigrants and the evolution of British society in the late 1960s. Each chapter unpacks one facet of a 10000-letter sample out of the approximately 100000 letters Powell received: Race State War Empire America Class Gender Elites Parties ‘Against’ - with this last chapter analysing letters of protest against Powell. This extraordinary archival material provides an altogether unique window into British society in the late 1960s and reads like a (white) anthropology of nativist Britons in times of swift change.</p><p>The book will be of interest to both students and academics of race immigration and ethnicity as well as by the general public.</p><p>Olivier Esteves appears in this short video about the book: </p><p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0lA5Nb9cso</p>