The Isles: A History 1st Edition

Norman Davies is a knowledgeable historian, but I found this book to be unsatisfactory. As an overview of UK history, the narrative wanders aimlessly, pre-occupied with certain issues while brushing over critical themes with little more than oblique references. Professor Davies' ideological agenda explains some of this, since he seems determined to debunk traditional Anglo-centric versions the history which have failed to emphasize the French and Germanic roots of the British ruling class, and which have ignored or distorted history of the Celtic regions. While probably fair enough at some level, the author's attitude results in a book that reads at times more like a rambling and opinionated history of British history than a disciplined account of how England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales came to be what they are today. Adding to the difficulty are stylistic problems which mar the book. I found much of the first 600 pages almost unreadable, given to endless displays of factual virtuosity without much effort to place anything into perspective. Since I find it hard to explain exactly what I mean here, to give an idea let me quote more or less randomly (this from page 285): "After that the marriage of Alexander (r.1107-24) to an illegitimate daughter of Henri I, and Henri I's marriage to Edith-Matilda, daughter of Malcolm III and Margaret, and sister to four Scottish kings, tied the dynastic, political and cultural strands of the knot for several generations. David I (r. 1124-53), youngest son of Malcolm and Margaret, was brought up at the English court as David fitzMalcom, Earl of Huntington and Northhamton." There are places where Davies goes on like this for pages on end, and I defy anyone not already well-versed in the history to make much sense out of it. Anyone who is well-versed, of course, doesn't need this sort of book in the first place, raising the question of what audience Professor Davies is trying to reach. He changes gear abruptly in the latter half of the book, and from there on the narrative becomes more readable, although the problem of idiosyncratic focus if anything gets worse, the text devolving more or less into a series of essays on loosely-related historical topics. He starts to number his sections at this point, devoting one each to the British civil service, the aristocracy, the economy, sports, currency, demographics, the monarchy, language, parliament, the navy, and so forth. Through all this, major historical figures - Victoria, Churchill, Disraeli, others, along with a bewildering array of minor ones - appear seemingly out of nowhere in the context of one topic or another, then they disappear again without any sense of who they were or what impact they had on the evolution of their nation. The major wars in which Britain fought are mentioned, but again out of context. The author devotes more space to describing the rules of cricket at one point than he does to recounting the political or military history of the Napoleonic wars or the American Revolution. Even the great world wars of the twentieth century get less space than do expansive quotations from novels, poems and old histories which the author reproduces with abandon throughout the book. In the last few pages, Davies begins to pontificate openly, "taking off the mask", as he describes it. He announces his belief that the disintegration of the United Kingdom is imminent. This is clearly the conclusion to which he's been driving for over 1000 pages, and he may well prove right about this if the political leaders of the UK suffer from his same inability to focus on critical issues. I also read this author's single-volume history of Europe, to which I had many of the same objections. In his introductions, he proclaims himself a champion of popular, big-picture history, and declares his distaste for the trend among his peers for writing "more and more about less and less". I keep reading his work because I happen to share this point of view, hoping vainly to find a "big picture" in all this jumbled detail. I probably don't feel quite as negative about this book as all this sounds - I did learn from it. However, I would suggest to prospective readers that there must be easier ways than this to get an overview of British history

It would be wrong to suppose that The Isles is "completely worthless as history simply because it is factually inaccurate."

That is what Davies has to say about Shakespeare's history plays on page 509 of the hard cover edition. The editing of this edition is appalling. James II is made out to be Charles II's son in appendix 30, page 1133, but he gets it right in the text.

Elizabeth Beaufort is Henry VII's mother in the text, on the other hand, this time he gets it right in appendix 26, page 1126-1127. She is the ONLY Beaufort mentioned in the whole 1058 pages of text and in appendix 19, page 1115 he has it terribly wrong, making Catherine Swynford Henry IV's mother. She would have had no time to make Beauforts.

Norman Davies is eminently readable. He is even a joy to read. He paints a very broad stroke. His point of view is reasonable. He is cogent. He marshalls his facts to make powerful arguments. His inconsistencies detract only a little after you get over the initial shock of finding them.

He makes a point of using names that he avers were current at the time of the action. Names tell something about the frame of mind of the users as well as about the named. It is curious, then that he consistently uses "Ireland" and "Irish" for the place and the people that we know by those names today, for that same place and the people who lived there in the centuries before the Vikings got there, when those terms came into general use (a fact he is careful to point out).

Like the bard, Davies "may be careless about event-based narrative but he is very interested in myths, legends and popular misconceptions."

Excellent so far.Gives a different interpretation of prehistory and after.

Thank you.

This book is incredibly informative and in-depth. It's the perfect text for anyone who wants an over-arching understanding of the United Kingdom's origins and history.

Very intrestig&informative.Progfound analysis of history

I'm on a mind improvement course...trying to keep my mind in shape...history helps.

This historical overview of what we misguided laypeople would call "The British Isles" is irredeemably undermined by the lame-brained polemic of its author, who fetishizes language with a zeal that leaves me shaking my head in disbelief. You see, in Davies's view it is unacceptable anachronistic to refer to places by names that derive from subsequent periods. We should instead make up our own arbitrary names for places, cultures, peoples, regions, and periods, and run the reader through a tedious gauntlet of guessing what we're actually talking about.

For example:

"The Bronze Age 'Flanged-axe Warriors' are better known to archaeologists by the modern name of the region of the southern Cliff Country where their settlements were first identified."

You will have either already know or rely on other sources to learn that what he obscures by insufferable affectation is known to everyone else as the Wessex Culture.

Is he serious? Does the author truly believe this is an improvement over conventional historiography? I'm afraid so, fellow reader. To comprehend this volume on an elementary level means a lot of pointless heavy lifting.

There may be some for whom this kind of thing is cute or edifying - to me it makes the book useless. I have zero interest in trying to figure out what on earth he means by "the Largest Lake of Green Isle" (really) or the "Penultimate Isles" (seriously). And you know, even when we use conventional terms understood by other human beings, I understand perfectly well that the Saxons weren't in England during the Neolithic. Because I'm not an imbecile.