A population of proud indigenous people fight for generations to preserve their homelands against an expanding empire - an invasion justified as being necessary for 'progress'. After centuries of resistance, their culture and community are destroyed. All of this takes place in East Anglia, roughly between the English Civil Wars and the mid-Victorian period. An innovative new take on the drainage of the Fens, framed in the language of colonialism, Imperial Mud upends the narrative of this being a triumph of technology over nature. The final destruction of England's last lowland wilderness and the dispossession of its custodians was not an inevitable consequence of 'progress', but of the growing power of a centralised and militarised state. Imperial Mud reimagines not just the history of the Fens, but the history and identity of the English people. 'An inspiring book, a great book.