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.
