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3.51 AVERAGE
3.51 AVERAGE
If you're looking for a history of England which will leave you in no doubt of the author's political sympathies, this is it. His disdain for Scotland, Wales and Ireland (referred to throughout as the troublesome "Celtic Fringe"), is apparent throughout, and he still seems to be a bit annoyed at the US becoming a greater power than England (he clearly thinks of the US as England's ungrateful child). You can't finish without feeling pretty confident this man has voted Tory all his life and was pro Brexit.
informative
slow-paced
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A short history through the conviniantly blameless parts of English history with a focus on stories of accuracy
informative
slow-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I really enjoyed this - I'm not a big history reader but I have sort of become one now and this was great. I loved being able to learn about the royal family throughout the centuries. And my favourite parts were learning about the Vikings and the early English history of how it came to be. Some of English history including the royal family history is very funny by how simple and dramatic things are and Simon does a really good job at poking fun at this whilst being realistic. There is absolutely so much history to go through but Simon does a very good job at summarising all of this as best as possible however there were a few moments where I thought there were more significant points in English history but we are only afforded a single sentence to explain it. I ended up having so many questions about those specific events but found myself having to look up a few things on the side of having the book. I did not have to do this oftenIthough. I very much found this a very easy to read history book if you are interested in English history. I am definitely going on to read Simon's book about London.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Excrement, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Murder, Pregnancy, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail
It's a history book so literally content warnings for everything.
Super interesting to actually read through the full (if very summarised) history of England from its beginning to now. Found this book a lot more easy to read than I thought I would (being so many centuries of history) and enjoyed it thoroughly as a good long-train-ride read. The author certainly presents the facts with a bit of a biased lens but he’s pretty open about that from the beginning so it wasn’t too off-putting. Generally quite informative and enjoyable :)
informative
fast-paced
informative
relaxing
slow-paced
dark
informative
medium-paced