In 1939, with Europe on the brink of war, Peter Gumbel’s Jewish grandparents fled Nazi Germany for England. In 2019, appalled not only by the result of the Brexit referendum but by the ugliness it exposed in our politics and wider society, he became a citizen of the country that had persecuted his grandparents less than a century earlier. How had it come to this? Through the story of his family and their migration, Citizens of Everywhere explores identity and belonging in the wake of Brexit and the coronavirus. In doing so, it laments Britain’s tragic slide from an open, pluralist haven to a country whose prejudices have led it to turn its back on the European project and engage in an ill-fated, isolationist struggle against an ever more interconnected world. As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, our increasingly layered identities are more complex than ever. The reactionary retreat away from pluralism and towards a nationalistic worldview is perhaps an inevitable response – and one that the political class seemed all too ready to exploit, without regard for the consequences. Gumbel’s short book will speak to many as he describes how the Britain he knew and loved, that welcomed his ancestors so readily, has taken a wrong turn at the worst possible moment – as it embarks on a once-in-a-generation struggle to overcome the devastating consequences of that most international of threats: the coronavirus.
ISBN: 978-1-913368-07-4
