The rise and fall of the British and Dutch Empire has been inextricably linked to the countries’ identity and politics. Today, as both the United Kingdom and The Netherlands struggle with their own imperial legacy, the shadows of empire loom large. While they no longer exert direct control over their former colonies, many of the legal and economic structures put in place during the era of colonisation still facilitate the system of wealth transfer that drives our world. Its methods of extraction during the imperial age have laid the groundwork for global disparities today.

So how did they manage and trap the wealth of newly decolonised nations? Which of these mechanisms are still in place today? And how are the consequences of empire now blowing back across the developed world?

Part of an ongoing collaboration with Dutch platform DeDependance,  we invited Dr. Kojo Koram to speak about his book Uncommon Wealth: The Aftermath of Empire.

For this event, I curated and moderated the discussion with Kojo Koram in collaboration with DeDependance.