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30 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
History with humour, 24 Oct 2007
O'Farrell enters Bill Bryson territory here by providing a read that's informative yet fun - it gives a basic chronological account of British history, the facts interspersed with a great many gags, most of which are worth a smile and occasionally genuine laughter.
It's certainly worth a go if you want to reacquaint yourself with the rudiments of our island's history, or if you want to find out about them for the first time having missed them at school. In fact, this might be a good buy for secondary History students as humour probably reinforces learning more than the countless mneumonics I was forced to learn as a lad, back in the olden days.
Overall, a very entertaining read provided one doesn't get cross with its flippant treatment of history, which would be to miss the point. Those wanting a scholarly treatment should look elsewhere, but if you like to have a laugh and learn a bit as you go, this is for you.
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59 of 71 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Amusing but poorly researched, 4 Nov 2007
As a History teacher, I'm all for making the subject more accessible and fun. This book tries to be a cross between '1066 And All That' and the Terry Deary 'Horrible History' for adults. Parts of it are very funny indeed and there are some sections which do inform as they entertain. Unfortunately, and I hate to be a killjoy, the whole thing is let down by the sheer laziness and superficiality of John O'Farrell's research. As he cheerfully admits , his factual information is largely skimmed from a few books and a quick trawl through the internet. Parts are just plain wrong, and as another reviewer says he seems completely ignorant of the last 20 years of Historical research. His account of the First World War, for example, is full of old myths and inaccuracies. Much of his 'analysis' is simply assertion, and there is no sense that History is a subject open to debate and different interpretations. To be fair, the title and subtitle of the book do acknowledge this in a way. However, if you're going to enthuse people about a subject, surely you should make some effort to make the information you're putting across as accurate as possible. I don't think Bill Bryson would have received plaudits for his popular science book if he'd got Einstein's Theory Of Relativity completely wrong!
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
As a comedy book 4 stars, as a history book 2 stars. Average 3 stars!, 23 Mar 2008
Here is the perfect, ahem, toilet book. Easy to pick up and put down, it lightly dusts over the details of British history to put forward the extremely partial views of the author on some subjects - especially when they can be connected to issues today, such as immigration. One annoyance in this is that although there is a less than lengthy bibliography at the end, many statements we are meant to take as facts are left unaccredited. As an example Britain before 1066 had "...a well developed legal system, effective regional government, good trade networks, strong coinage and thriving churches and monasteries" Did it? You won't find any evidence to back this up in here I'm afraid. And there are lots of bald facts like this produced with no specific evidence, or clues as to where we might want to go to see the evidence. But am I missing the point of this book?
As a laugh out loud comedy book this is really rather good. Some of the "jokes" are sub pythonesque and hit you over the head like a hammer. For example, one of the first landlords to be ostracized by his tenants after new land laws were brought in was a Captain Boycott. As the author says, "...this could be a whole new word in the English language" "Yes, if landlords evict anyone we'll captain them" OK perhaps you had to be there, but there are many, better examples of this sort of humour in this book.
One thing worth noting is that the humour does seem to relent as the book (and history) goes on. Perhaps more recent events aren't as rich pickings for this sort of thing as the Dark Ages, but nevertheless, the author's partiality does come out when we get nearer the 20th Century so there is definite irony in the title.
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