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Liverpool has always been a city apart. Perched on the edge of the Irish Sea, looking out towards America and the wider world, it has often felt less like a provincial English city and more like a maritime city-state. In this week’s podcast, I sat down with David Swift to discuss his new book, A Scouse Republic. We explored the deep roots of Liverpool’s unique identity—an identity that is fierce, political, and distinct from the rest of the UK.
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How does a community make meaning of its past? How do people, separated from their ancestral homelands by centuries of violence and migration, navigate the present by historicizing themselves? For a generation of young Black Britons coming of age in the 1970s and 80s, these were not abstract questions. They were urgent, existential inquiries that would be answered through a powerful fusion of culture, politics, and a single, seismic television event. As the cultural historian Eddie Chambers documents in his essential book, Roots and Culture, this period saw a dramatic shift in how Black British youth related to their heritage. The relationship of…