In this meticulous work of research and recovery, Laura Tabili provides a rich and sympathetic account of the colonial seamen who established stable and enduring communities in interwar Britain. As precursors to today's migrants, their story of struggle, resilience, and resistance couldn't be more timely.

Dane Kennedy, Professor Emeritus, George Washington University, USA

This deeply researched book brings to light the strategies and solidarities through which colonial seafarers made their lives livable in interwar Britain. Distinctive is Tabili's attention to their resourcefulness in the face of hostility, discrimination, and exploitation-and to their role in shaping today's multicultural metropole.

Antoinette Burton, University of Illinois, USA

Colonized Migrants in Imperial Britain taps into an unusual cache of official documents to offer what is arguably one of the few “thick descriptions” of working-class colonized lives in Britain in the era before the Windrush generation. The colonized mariners in this book have complex lives who negotiate with the circumstances they confront through both individual and collective resources. Tabili recreates their world with considerable skill and empathy.

Mrinalini Sinha, Alice Freeman Palmer Professor of History, University of Michigan, USA

Laura Tabili with profound knowledge and forensic skill has interrogated a wide range of primary sources to recreate the lives of colonised seafarers and their experiences of navigating an often hostile metropolis where powerful employers sought to exploit their labour for low wages, and indifferent and distant officials to deny them residence in Britain. Colonised working class men and woman come alive in this original and ground-breaking study; this is 'history from below' at its very best.

David Killingray, Goldsmiths, and Institute of Commonwealth Studies, SAS, University of London, UK