Empire’s periphery supplied analysts who reshaped the imperial center’s self-understanding.

Evidence

At its simplest, one might say that Stuart was born on the periphery of empire and traveled from that marginal setting to the very heartlands of the imperial center—first to Oxford University and later into the academic and media worlds of what was, in the later stages of his life, already becoming ex-imperial (or, perhaps better, postcolonial) London. In that capacity he was also one of the major analysts of what became known as multicultural Britain—and not only an analyst but an active protagonist in the crucial debates about race, ethnicity, and identity which did so much to transform Britain over the last sixty years. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 16

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the reviewer’s line that Hall’s personal narrative ‘strangely intertwined’ with British public history — a signature pattern of the postcolonial intellectual as insider-outsider.