42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable, fun primer to British history, March 31, 2005
This review is from: British History for Dummies (Paperback)
When I came across "British History for Dummies" by Sean Lang, my intention was to sift through it as I had with other Dummies books, like my treasured "Personal Finance for Dummies". I never intended to sit down and read it through like I would a novel by Maeve Binchy or John Grisham. But yet that is exactly what happened.
Believe me, I was as shocked as you probably are about that. But it's absolutely true. I just plopped down on the sofa the evening I got the book, and before I knew it I was on page 53 reading about the Romans' invasion of Britain. I was totally engrossed, and couldn't wait to return to the book to find out what happened next.
As an American growing up in the public school system, my exposure to British history was extremely limited. I knew about Henry VIII's beheaded wives, and that England and France hated each other (but was never exactly sure why), and that Queen Elizabeth I sent Sir Walter Raleigh to set up colonies in the New World, and that we kicked the Redcoats' butts in the Revolutionary War after declaring our independence from Britain, and that Queen Victoria was on the throne for a really long time, and the Industrial Revolution started during her reign, and that the workers were so down-and-out that Charles Dickens wrote a couple of books about them, and that we helped the British out in WWI and WWII, and that Winston Churchill looked like a bulldog who gave really good speeches. Oh, and Princess Diana, of course. Yep, that about sums up what I knew about British history.
And then a few years ago, an extraordinary thing happened: I met, fell in love with and married an Englishman. It was embarrassing to admit to him how little I actually knew about his homeland's history. I mean, I didn't even know that Vikings and Romans had invaded England until I was in college. I knew hardly nothing about the Northern Ireland conflict, and most of what I knew about Scotland came from watching the movie "Braveheart". And the sad thing is, I know that many Americans are probably in the same position that I was -- before reading this book, that is.
Lang does a superb job of giving a generalized history of Britain without shoving it down your throat. He breaks it up into nice little sections that make learning about this history manageable. Moreover, his writing style is relaxed and inviting, casual and funny. (He has section titles like "Bad Heir Day" and "Fighting the French: A National Sport" -- how can you keep from smiling?!) But yet not too over-the-top. He does not insult the reader's intelligence, just keeps it real. He gives lots of gems of historical information, without being overbearing. It's a wonderful balance; I'm not quite sure how he pulled it off.
He admits fully that this is NOT a standard history text, so don't expect it to be. In the Introduction, what he wrote here sums it up perfectly: "If your idea of a history book is the sort of thing they gave you at school, forget it. Those books are written by people who want to get you through exams and give you tests and generally show off just how much they know and how clever they are at saying it. Believe me, I've written them. This book is different. Okay, it tells you the whole story, but I've tried to do so without making it seem like one whole slog. This is a great story: Don't miss it."
Now, as with any book, there are shortcomings. For me, there were three main ones, which drops the score from five stars to four. First, ironically enough, the book is obviously written with a British audience in mind. I know this for a fact because there were several times I had to ask my husband for clarification on people or things Lang referred to in the book. While I was lucky enough to have a British person living in my household who was available to answer my questions, I'm afraid not every non-Briton reading this book has that luxury.
Second, there were a lot of noticeable typos. One good example is on page 352, where a section is entitled, "You may have won the won the war, but you can't have any sweets". Also, one of the legendary comic drawings in the book has the word "receive" spelled "recieve". These are basic typos that an amateur copyeditor should have caught, but didn't. (Perhaps the 2nd edition will be better in this respect.)
And third, the majority of this book focuses almost entirely on Britain's political history. We do hear about religion, but mostly how it relates to government and kings. And there are lots of kings (and some queens) to contend with. There is very, very little on Britain's cultural history, about the "regular folk" living in Britain, and when we do hear about it, again it is in reference to government and politics. I certainly understand that a book like this cannot be all-encompassing; but at the same time, I was craving to learn more beyond Britain's governmental evolution.
All that said, though, it's still a great book and a wonderful read. I honestly feel like I know a lot more about British history now, even though the book was often written in a light-hearted style. Lang made me feel excited about learning Britain's history and has made me want to read more indepth about specific British historical people and events. This was a great primer.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Never boring!, March 15, 2005
This review is from: British History for Dummies (Paperback)
Hello, my name is Rebecca and I'm a dummy! England, Scotland, and Ireland to me were: the accents, the Royalty, tea and crumpets, Leprechauns, Oliver Twist, Romeo and Juliet, Monty Python, soccer(football)...basically I knew nothing. I've never had so much fun reading a history book before. If you want really in depth detail about certain events in British History, than this book is not for you. If, like me, you are a complete dummy when it comes to the islands, than BUY THIS BOOK! I'm American and the history I remember studying in school was mainly American History. Yeah, I knew about Henry the eigth and his many headless wives, Queen Elizabeth, The Titanic, Shakespeare, the half truths I learned from movies and television (Braveheart, Robin Hood), but I never understood the big picture. Who were the Celts, when did the Kings come into the picture, when did Scots become Scots and why did they want to be seperate from England? The book is a huge summary of basically every event that took place from the cave men to Harry Potter. I found out why we celebrate St. Patricks Day (I had no idea he wasn't Irish), and why South Ireland isn't a part of the U.K., and what the I.R.A. really is and why they are so mad, and I found out why the Queen and Royalty don't have much authority over the country anymore. Even though the author sprinkles in a lot of his own opinions(hilariously accurate), he gives it to you straight, shows the good side AND the ugly side of the English, Scots, Irish, Welsh...everyone. This book should not substitute for other detailed books. It actually makes me want to read more about certain events, but now I know how it all strings together. It's basically a great book to start with if you are in fact, like me, a dummy!
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
OK for a quick review, but buyer beware., October 10, 2008
First, a caveat for my fellow Americans: this book is written primarily for a British audience. The author states in his introduction that he assumes the reader has studied some British or English history at school, but found it confusing or doesn't quite remember who did what. Personally, I'm an American studying English literature, and I bought this book to help provide some context for the works I'm reading for school. At times I felt like I was missing something that this book assumed I knew. Still, since I'm not the book's target audience, I'm not taking off any points for that.
I will, however, take away a star for the book's factual errors. One example is the book's assertion that "'Viking' isn't really a noun, but a verb (or if you're really into this sort of thing, the word's a gerund) meaning 'going off as a pirate': You might say you were going off a-viking for the day." Cute, but the Oxford English Dictionary disagrees. The first half of the word, according to the OED, "was probably formed from Old English wic, camp, the formation of temporary encampments being a prominent feature of viking raids"; the second half is "a suffix forming derivative masculine nouns, with the sense of 'one belonging to' or 'of the kind of'."
But from my perspective, a bigger problem is the way the information is presented. It's hard to get a good feel for the people and places who make up these stories. The author is so concerned with being approachable and informal that he never quite manages to build any narrative thrust. That might seem an odd criticism of a book of history, but after reading a few chapters I found that my head was filled with a bunch of facts without connections or significance. You could piece together enough information to pass a test with this book, but not enough to gain a solid understanding of history.
I still enjoy paging through this book to review the major points, but it's no longer my primary source for learning about British history. For that, I'm enjoying Rebecca Fraser's
The Story of Britain: From the Romans to the Present: A Narrative History. It, too, assumes a British audience, but Fraser spends enough time on each event (her book is twice as long as Lang's and contains far less white space) to hammer the important names and places into my feeble memory, while at the same time giving me a better feel for the way it all fits together.
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