The first section of Gemma Romain's study of history and memory within Britain's Jewish and African Caribbean communities examines a small number of autobiographies and other personal memories produced by members of these communities—what she terms “autobiographical acts.” (20) Her goal is to show how members of these communities have tended to structure their accounts of their own lives (and the histories of their wider communities) in similar ways. So the focus in Jewish autobiographical acts on the idea of Britain as a “Promised Land” has its counterpart in the African Caribbean notion of Britain as the “Mother Country.” Similarly, Romain argues, members of both communities have often identified not only with Britain and their country of origin but also as part of a global diaspora of Jewish or African people.

This is not to say that Romain ignores the differences between Jewish and African Caribbean autobiographical acts. Some of these differences have to do with the basic issue of whose memories have been recorded in these two communities. As Romain notes, most British Jews who have written autobiographies or participated in oral history projects are the children of immigrants, while her African Caribbean subjects tend to be immigrants themselves. There are also, however, significant differences in how historical memories tend to be used in Jewish or African Caribbean autobiographical acts. So, for example, Romain argues that the idea of Britain as a “Promised Land” serves to buttress a common myth in Jewish memory of the immediate success of the immigrant generation. By way of contrast, the African Caribbean emphasis on the idea of Britain as the “Mother Country” is used to emphasize the gap between the immigrants’ idealized notions of Britain and the realities of British society when they arrived (particularly concerning British racism).

Romain's study is a heavily theoretical one, and the introduction contains a lengthy discussion of theoretical debates concerning oral history, autobiography, and the historical uses of memory. While this discussion demonstrates an impressive command of the literature, it also betrays this study's origins as a PhD thesis. The theoretical issues raised in the introduction are not always well integrated with the analysis of Romain's sources that comes later in the book. For example, Romain is eager to engage with debates about “diasporic consciousness,” but at times it appears that her goal is to use her sources to exemplify theoretical points as opposed to using this theory to illuminate Jewish and African Caribbean autobiography. Romain examines a number of interesting examples of individuals wrestling with the notion of diaspora, but her ultimate conclusion that “the relationship between ideas of ‘home’ and ‘diaspora’ is multifaceted and subject to constant change” (166) tells us little about how the idea of diaspora has influenced Jewish or African Caribbean autobiography and oral history.

Romain relies on a very small number of sources, usually only three or four for each chapter, and this prevents any kind of deeper sociological analysis of either Jewish or African Caribbean migrants. In addition, most of the sources used by Romain are published, but the potential difficulties of relying on this subset of the Anglo-Jewish or African Caribbean communities in Britain are not consistently addressed. Romain acknowledges the difficulties with using such a limited number of sources and even states that her conclusions would have been different if she had examined a different set of autobiographies. Despite this acknowledgment, however, Romain still argues that her study illuminates the nature of memory within these two communities as a whole. This tension is clearest in Romain's discussion of “diasporic consciousness” (112), which largely relies on published authors who have also traveled extensively. Romain argues that the sense of diasporic consciousness present in these works is prominent across the British Jewish and African Caribbean communities, an argument that is supported by a brief glance at a couple of additional autobiographies. However, this claim that the concept of diaspora is “extremely important” (245) among the wider Anglo-Jewish and African Caribbean communities seems to stretch beyond the evidence presented here.

In the last section of the book, Romain shifts her focus from historical memory as expressed in individual “autobiographical acts” to the wider memories of the histories of the British Jewish and African Caribbean communities. Romain first investigates how a number of early twentieth-century riots directed against either Jews or African Caribbean peoples in Britain were largely suppressed and forgotten, not only within British society more generally but even within the communities victimized by those riots. In both cases these events have been “re-remembered” in recent years, reflecting a shift in how these two communities approach their own histories. In the book's strongest chapter, Romain also discusses the dangers of an oversimplified comparative history between Jewish and African Caribbean immigration. Romain argues that all too often Britain's Jews are remembered or portrayed as a model immigrant community characterized by hard work and economic success. A contrast is often made with African Caribbean immigrants, who are accused of failing to exemplify the same traits that helped Jews become successful and well-integrated members of British society. Roman attempts to poke holes in this analysis by illustrating the ways that British Jewish history reveals that Jewish immigrants did not always live up to this image of diligence and success. Romain argues quite rightly that much could potentially be learned from a more thorough and nuanced comparison of the histories of these two groups.

Romain's study provides a clear introduction to a number of important debates concerning autobiography and memory and also illustrates how a deep engagement with the theoretical literature on memory can illuminate a select number of autobiographies. Romain also provides some useful insights into the uses of historical memory within these two communities, but her efforts to draw wider conclusions about Jewish or African Caribbean memory based on limited sources are not always convincing.