Panikos Panayi

Panikos Panayi (born 18 October 1962) is a cultural historian known for his books on the social history of food, immigration, and inter-ethnic relations.

Biography He writes on the social history of food and immigration. His books have been translated into German, French, and Japanese. The global which according to the historian Stuart Hilton triggered a hostile reaction from extreme rightwing political parties.

Reception

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, reviewing Spicing up Britain in The Independent, stated that "Panikos Panayi has written extensively about migrants. His books surprise and gratify, draw readers into the alternative history of this mongrel nation [of Britain], unmade and remade by waves of outsiders", including German, Italian, and Spanish migrants. She found however that the style and language were turgid and indigestible, and that parts that should have been fascinating were "served up unappetisingly." Times Higher Education wrote of the same book that Panayi avoided the trap of over-easy ethnic generalisation, and concluded that "If Panayi has an agenda, it is to wake up ignorant Brits, to make them realise how central immigrants have been to the development of the UK's economy and culture in the last century and a half."

The English Historical Review described An Immigration History of Britain as an excellent synthesis of scholarship on immigrants' experiences.

Awards and distinctions

Panayi has been an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the University of Osnabrück at times between 1991 and 2014. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Books

Immigration Enemy in Our Midst: Germans in Britain During the First World War, 1991 Immigration, ethnicity and racism in Britain 1815-1945, 1994 German Immigrants in Britain During the 19th Century, 1815-1914, 1995 Outsiders: History of European Minorities, 1998 An Ethnic History of Europe since 1945: Nations, States and Minorities, 1999 Ethnic Minorities in 19th and 20th Century Germany: Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Turks and Others, 2000 Germans in Britain since 1500 (essays edited by Panikos Panayi), 2003 Prisoners of Britain: German Civilian and Combatant Internees During the First World War, 2014 An Immigration History of Britain: Multicultural Racism since 1800, 2014 The Germans in India: Elite European migrants in the British Empire, 2017 Migrant City: A New History of London, 2020

Food Spicing Up Britain: The Multicultural History of British Food, 2010 Fish and Chips: A History, 2014