became known as an academic historian of the music of the African diaspora. His socially engaged theories on race, discrimination and culture did much to heighten the cultural and political consciousness of the UK’s black population in the 1990s. His publications include Ain’t no Black in the Union Jack (1987) and Postcolonial Melancholia (2004); he was also one of the authors of the highly controversial The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 1970s Britain (1982). Gilroy lectured at Yale University for several years, before accepting a chair in social theory at the London School of Economics in 2005.