Customer Reviews

History of Britain, A - Volume III: The Fate of the Empire 1776 - 2000 (History of Britain (Talk Miramax))

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Let me start off this review by saying that I am a great admirer of Mr. Schama. I have read "Citizens", "Landscape And Memory" and "Rembrandt's Eyes" and thought they were all wonderful. I would give all of those books a 5 star rating. So, what happened here? I think what happened is that Mr. Schama was being pulled in 2 different directions. This book is meant to accompany the television programs that the author is hosting for the BBC. Instead of just writing whatever book he might ordinarily have written, I think Mr. Schama was hindered by the restrictions the TV format placed on him. For the TV shows he had to come up with various "hooks", a few well-known personalities that would help him illustrate whatever point or points he was trying to make at that point in the narrative. Additionally, the television format required Mr. Schama to be ruthlessly selective in what he chose to include or exclude. There just isn't the time to put in everything that you'd like to. These requirements distort the writing process. Mr. Schama is aware of the problem and addresses it in the preface to the book. But this "preemptive strike", this acknowledgement by the author that he is aware of the problem, doesn't make the problem go away. The author is such a good historian, and such a good writer, that this book is still well- worth reading. Mr. Schama has pulled out, like rabbits from a hat, some interesting tales of little-known historical figures. Here we have Thomas Day, a great believer in the theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: "...Day...believed in the inter-connectedness of all created life and was therefore a vegetarian...Would he want to treat all creatures with the same consideration, asked a sardonic lawyer friend, even spiders? Would he not want to kill them? 'No,' answered Day, 'I don't know that I have a right. Suppose that a superior being said to a companion- "Kill that lawyer." How should you like it? And a lawyer is more noxious to most people than a spider.'......(Day's) peculiar life ended abruptly in September 1789 in his 42nd year, during an experiment to test his pet theories about taming horses with gentleness rather than breaking them. An unbroken colt he was riding failed to respond to the tender touch, and threw Day on his head." The book is filled with nice touches like this. There are many entertaining anecdotes about the well-known, such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Queen Victoria, George Orwell, Winston Churchill, etc.....and the not-so-well-known, such as Mr. Day. This provides a counterbalance to the heavyweight material.....for example, the intricacies of British politics (Pitt vs. Fox; Gladstone vs. Disraeli; Labour vs. Liberal vs. Conservative); the big-issues (home-rule for Ireland; women's suffrage; the Raj; industrialization; etc.). But, despite the quality of both Mr. Schama's thinking and writing, in the end we feel strangely unsatisfied. Too much has been left out. Despite what you might have anticipated by the book starting with 1776, there is nothing here concerning the American Revolution; a handful of pages concerning the 20 year struggle against Napoleonic France; no mention of the War Of 1812; virtually nothing on the Crimean and Boer Wars or WWI; nothing on the relationship between Britain and South Africa, or Britain and Canada, or Britain and Australia/New Zealand, etc.; and, surprisingly, considering Mr. Schama's wide-ranging interests, except for mentioning some writers, there is very little cultural history contained in these pages- nothing about art, music, dance, architecture, etc.; and almost no mention of scientific and technological achievements. So, if you are a fan of Mr. Schama, read this book for the beautiful prose and for the author's always interesting insights concerning the areas he has chosen to cover. But, if you are looking for a detailed, all-inclusive history of Great Britain- you will need to look elsewhere.

This third and final volume is a winning culmination of Schama's wonderful "A History of Britain." Schama himself affirms that this is "a" History of Britain, not "the" History of Britain. Yes, it's impressionistic, but this also allows Schama to use his brilliant writing skills. Nobody narrates history like Schama. The previous reviewer's comments about Schama not considering the War oif 1812, etc., seems beside the point. This is not a textbook, and Thank God for that! If you're a Schama fan (as I am), you won't be disappointed by this book. I especially enjoyed Schama use of George Orwell (my favorite writer) as a locus for describing Britain in the early 20th Century. If you're at all interested in history, you should buy this wonderful book.

If history bores you and you enjoy reading, I think Schama intends more to educate through entertainment than to simply educate. This is not the typical history book and is well-written. There are plenty of funny, interesting, and most often brief acounts given that help one understand and provide laughs at times. Schama is not a British historian and has lived in the US for maybe the last 25 years. But on account of being British, a Columbia professor, and--based on reading his three volumes on British history--an excellent writer, he has been encouraged and has writen about British history.
After reading this book I got a good feel of the life at the time, and I think that is largely due to the historical records Schama uses that show the emotions and logic of the times. The beautiful pictures also help in fostering a sense of what Britain is and was like. This book is a very easy and enjoyable to read, and I think this book is perfect for the reader unfamiliar with British history but does not take to history per se.

There's history read mostly for entertainment. And then there's history that's not escapist at all, that brings to mind the struggles of the day. This is history definitely in the latter category.

The subject of the book may be British imperial history, especially in Ireland and India, but the particulars of that history remind one of all the great debates the world has been having since the Englightenment. Or, more precisely, all the competing philosophies that people have killed, rioted, and rebelled for throughout most of the world in the last 250 years: equality vs freedom, economic security vs dynamism, rule by oligarch or by democracy, universal vs limited franchise, imperialism vs national self-determination. The debate over the aesthetics of the environment are even represented as Schama shows throughout the book, from beginning to end, how political the act of perceiving and traveling through the English countryside has been in the book's years.

But this book, even though it touches on all those issues, isn't detailed enough to provide any conclusive answers to any side of those arguments. And Schama acknowledges that up front, that this is even more of a collection of personal essays on Britain than a detailed history. To be sure, you do get an overview of British history up through WWII. To an American like me, it was nice to see some details about the actual philosophies of Disraeli and Gladstone, that Winston Churchill was not the stereotypical conservative that some Americans imagine him to be, Prince Albert's contribution to Victoria's reign, the controversies of rule in Ireland and India. Still, I got the sense I was exposed to some elliptical references that only an educated Brit would know. Like many general histories, though, it left an appetite for learning more details.

But I'm going to be viewing a bibliography so heavy with titles from the 1990s with suspicion. Especially when I see Schama repeating that hoary feminist myth about a legal "rule of thumb" sanction for husbands to beat their wives. A running theme is the use of British history from Macauley to Winston Churchill and George Orwell, how their perceptions of what the British past was guided their visions for the future, their notions of what war must preserve. I said in my review of the preceding volume in the series that Schama calls himself a "born-again Whig". He didn't just mean subscribing, in part, to a great man of history. (Though you can find that in his portrayal of the great, contradictory Churchill and his defense of the man, warts and all.) He makes clear he mostly means Macauley's notion of an empire bringing democratic liberalism to the world, teaching its subjects, and then releasing them to become brothers in a common culture.

Schama well-nigh rhapsodizes about this gift of empire at the end. In some ways, this book reminded me of Niall Ferguson's Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power. Both attempt to rehabilitate the empire while acknowledging its often emphasized downsides. Unlike the preceding volume, Schama lists many crimes of the British Empire. If he doesn't genuflect at the altar of Imperial Guilt, he pauses for several moments of silence. Unlike Ferguson, he doesn't quite come out and say it was, as a whole, all worth it. Still, Schama approvingly notes we get lovely Indian novels in English, West Indians in London, and Pakistanis breathing liberty in the Sceptred Isle.

Schama's notion of what it means to be British is not a racial notion. He explicitly rejects that. It is what, in American terms, is called a proposition nation. While I appreciated the details of British history Schama gave me, I don't buy this notion of nationhood, a notion that Schama is so passionate about that he lapses, at book's end, into a brief, uncharacteristic bit of incoherence. Empires less liberal than Britain seem to have had trouble with diverse populations. Mass immigration, democracy, and multiculturalism are as unsustainable a combination in Britain as anywhere else. And Enoch Powell, deliverer of the infamous 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech against mass immigration, now seems less the paranoid ranter of Schama's description and more of a Cassandra.

A single-volume history of Britain from 1776-2000 -- tall order.

Schama's history primarily addresses intellectual and political trends, inequality at home and abroad, whatever happens to be festering in his brain on any given day in front of the word processor, and, of course, the perpetually complex relationship the British seem to have with their soil. Literally. Schama tells us of a Tory agricultural wizard obsessed with "manuring" the countryside (if only the tenant farmers would cooperate). My parochial American upbringing probably explains why I had no idea that "manure" is also a verb.

The land and its mythology returns again and again, as the Back to Nature movement romanticizes primitive Britain, the rustic origins of the noble Anglo. These intrepid blokes joined the common man in actually walking around the countryside, much to the chagrin of their more refined equals. Rousseau, always one french fry short of a Happy Meal, is welcomed as a celebrity until he turns on the puffy, rich sponsors who bought him his country cabin.

And so it goes, in a similar vein, throughout. Schama walks us through the ripple effects of the French Revolution, the political sources of the Irish Famine, Queen Victoria's lasting impact on her society, and the noble British enlightenment of India (achieved, in part, by selling India-grown opium to the Chinese, who balked and thus compelled tough love from Her Majesty).

I won't spoil it for you, but a final item the reader can look forward to: Schama treats us to nothing less than a "celebrity roast" of every single Prime Minister. Yes, that Simon fellow hates 'em all.

And he likes George Orwell (a chap with true grit)... and... oh, just read it (that's "read" -- don't watch it on the telly).

Somewhere towards the end of the third volume a flood of images and music unrelated to the book came wafting into the back of my brain. All the class-conscious hypocrisy, bizarre rustic iconography, socialist angst, faded national optimism and ironic, guilt-driven humor of Monty Python, "Are You Being Served", "The Benny Hill Show", the Beatles, the Sex Pistols, Elvis Costello, the Clash and the Jam had an enhanced meaning. As an American with a scant knowledge of the history of Britain, I appreciate the loose history lesson by Mr. Schama as presented in the complete set; you certainly have to get used to the style of writing, but it was fun. Most of all I agree with Scama's suggestion that the genius of the political and cultural legacy of Great Britain is in the end more important than the bigotry and ignorance of pre-World War II British Imperialism. Volume II was my favorite and I certainly would recommend reading all three volumes in chronological order.

This is popular history for those who know little but those who know a great deal will also find it enjoyable. Sure, it is a coffee table book, but so what?

I loved it as I loved the two other volumes.

It would also make a nice gift for anyone interested in British history. So what if they know everything? They can look at the pictures.

I read all 3 of Simon's books on the history of Britain. I did it because I am a history buff. However, Simon writes in a way that makes it difficult to remember anything about the book. Instead of focusing on significant historical events and figures, he weaves in alot of information and persons that are either not that relevant or difficult to place in context. I think his whole series is average at best. Surely, someone can do better.