TOMIWA OWOLADE AND SAVILIAN JAKE WALLIS SIMONS IN CONVERSATION WITH SAVILIAN DAVID OLDROYD-BOLT.

Across the West, racial injustice has become one of the most divisive issues of our age. In the rush to address inequality and prejudice, and to understand concerns around identity, immigration and colonial history, Britain has followed the lead of the world’s dominant power: America. We judge ourselves by America’s standards, absorb its arguments and follow its agenda. But what if we’re looking in the wrong place?

This is Not America is built on the idea that black Britons are British first and foremost, and thus are likely to have more in common with other Britons than with black people in other parts of the world. It argues that too much of the conversation around race in Britain today is viewed through the prism of American ideas that don’t reflect the history, challenges and achievements of increasingly diverse black populations at home. To build a long-lasting and more effective anti-racist agenda we must acknowledge that crucial differences exist between Britain and America, and that we are talking about distinct communities and cultures, distinguished by language, history, class, religion and national origin. Humane, empirical and passionate, this book provides a bold new framework for understanding race in Britain today.

Tomiwa Owolade is a journalist and author. He has written for many publications, including the New Statesman, the Times, the Sunday Times and the Observer. This is Not America is his first book.

In the Middle Ages, Jews were hated for their religion. In the twentieth century, they were hated because of their race. Today, Jews are hated for something else entirely, their nation-state of Israel. Antisemitism has morphed into something both ancient and modern: Israelophobia. But how did this transformation occur? And why?

Award-winning journalist Jake Wallis Simons answers these questions, clarifying the line between criticism and hatred, exploring game-changing facts and exposing dangerous discourse.

Urgent, incisive and deeply necessary, Israelophobia reveals why the Middle East’s only democracy, which uniquely respects the rights of women and sexual and religious minorities, attracts such disproportionate levels of slander. Rather than defending Israel against all criticism, it argues for reasonable disagreement based on reality instead of bigotry.

Through charting the history of Israelophobia – starting in Nazi Germany, travelling via the Kremlin to Tehran and along fibre optic cables to billions of screens – and using it to understand contemporary prejudice, this timely book will restore much-needed sanity to the debate, creating the space for mutual understanding, tolerance and peace.

‘Important and necessary’ SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

”Excellent and fearless’ HOWARD JACOBSON

‘Timely and important’ DAILY TELEGRAPH

Jake Wallis Simons, an award-winning writer, broadcaster and journalist, is Editor of the Jewish Chronicle. His fifth book, Israelophobia, published in September 2023, has been called “important and necessary” by Simon Sebag Montefiore; “excellent and fearless” by Howard Jacobson; and “timely and important” by the Daily Telegraph. He is a writer for the Spectator, a commentator for Sky News and a broadcaster for BBC Radio 4 and the World Service. Formerly, as a foreign reporter, he covered stories all over the world, from the terror attacks in Europe to the coup in Zimbabwe and the hurricanes in the Caribbean. He was also one of the main journalists to expose allegations of Jeremy Corbyn’s antisemitism. His four novels include the bestselling The English German Girl, about the Kindertransport.