Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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71 of 76 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A massive disappointment, 29 Mar 2007
I bought this book because I'd just read Stephen Oppenheimer's "The Origins of the British" and was fascinated by his take on the history of the English language. It made so much sense, I wanted to look into it further. I came across Harper's book and it seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. Seemed to be.
Now I'll be the first to agree that academia needs a swift kick up the backside but, frankly, this ain't the book to do it. Harper spends most of his time slagging off academics, perhaps justifiably, but does so in such a smug, self-serving manner that it starts to grate within the first 20 pages. Meanwhile, those same 20 pages are filled with sloppy reasoning and throw-away statements, and not a single reference. This goes on for the entire text. Now, surely, if you want to beat the academics at their own game, you have to play by their rules. Any other approach and you'll be laughed out of court. Yet Harper singularly fails to provide one argument that would persuade me, let alone an Oxbridge professor. Word of advice Mike: know your enemy...
Not only is there the criminal absence of a bibliography or any other form of supporting evidence, the entire premise of Harper's argument is "It is as it was unless there is bone-chilling evidence to the contrary". Essentially, "This is right unless you can prove otherwise". Isn't that like arguing that God exists because there is no proof he doesn't? I always thought that was a logical fallacy.
This is all a real shame, because I so wanted to like this book. I agree with the author that the history of language in the UK as it is taught is seriously flawed. There is almost no evidence for the oft used argument that pre-Saxon England was Celtic-speaking, and the fact that you can count the number of Celtic loan-words in English on your fingers is pretty damn good evidence against. But Harper seems to want to deny the academic arguments so vehemently that he throws the baby out with the bath water. Arguing that English developed quite separately from Old English (which he conveniently refers to as "Anglo-Saxon" all the way through) seems like clutching at straws. Oppenheimer's view that pre-Saxon England already spoke a Germanic language that the Anglo-Saxon languages contributed to to form Old English seems much more plausible to me. The idea that everyone in the country spoke a separate language to Old English yet we don't see that language written down until many, many years after the Norman Conquest seems quite ridiculous. I'm sorry, I couldn't believe "The Da Vinci Code" when it tried to convince me that there were secret traditions hidden from us for hundreds of years, and I can't believe this argument either.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A couple of interesting ideas under all the puffery., 2 Feb 2008
It's a needlessly insulting little book, and at least partially incorrect. Still, it's an interesting book because parts of it might be right. I hope the right people read it, and manage to overlook the insults and errors.
1) His description of evolutionary biology and the problem of fossil ancestors is just uninformed. He makes the common error in assuming that we humans have evolved and improved, but our ancestral species have not. Then, he wonders "where our the ancestral species?"
Silly! The ancestral species have evolved too. It's basically symmetric: we and the apes both evolved from a common ancestor. We are as much the ancestral species of a chimpanzee as chimpanzees are our ancestors. The reason that ancestral species are not here any more is simply that all species change with time because their environments change and because of genetic drift.
Now, this is not the central point, but it's well known and has been well popularized by people like Stephen Gould, so it's something that he should have known when writing the book. You then have to wonder what other errors there are?
2) He tells a story about how academics avoid dealing with inconsistencies in their data. It sounds plausible enough, and may even sometimes be partially true. But, academics are not just fat cats who are trapped in their boyhood myths. Most of us are curious and want to know what is really going on.
Most of us understand that conforming to the standard model is indeed a good way to live quietly and comfortably, but we also know that there is nothing better than breaking the standard model, if it can really be proven to be wrong. The model breakers are the people who are remembered by history and the ones who get the juicy academic posts and prizes. The quiet people who conform may live comfortably, but they tend to live comfortably in second rate, out-of-the way institutions.
So, while there are forces for conformity in academia, there are also forces for revolution. If an academic discipline slides into slothful conformity, you can be sure it is because real proof is unobtainable, not because people are too blind to see it. If there were clear evidence, some ambitious junior lecturer would grab it and use it.
So, don't take the book seriously. It's probably wrong. Still, it has an interesting idea or two in there. Do we really know that the common people in AD 800 spoke Anglo-Saxon? Do we really know that in 55 BCE they spoke British (i.e. a Celtic language)? How do we know that they didn't speak something rather closer to modern English?
I don't know the answers, but I'll keep an eye open. On the off chance he's partially right, it might give my career a boost.
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43 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Arrant Tosh, 17 Jan 2008
Whilst reading this stupid, stupid book, it became clear within the first few paragraphs that M. J. Harper must at some time have been dreadfully wronged by academe and borne a grudge ever since. I can only imagine that historians ran over his childhood pet, or that his father abandoned his family to become an etymologist. Whatever its cause, the deep and burning resentment this man feels is palpable. One could almost feel sorry for him if it wasn't for the overwhelming torrents of smug self-satisfaction that cascade from every page.
His argument is, of course, complete guff. It would take a book considerably longer than his to fully explain why every single point he makes is so wrong, although it mostly boils down to the matter of all the "bone-chilling evidence" that he chooses to ignore. I don't know, maybe to him engaging with the evidence would seem like sinking to the level of an academic, and anyway, why would you bother when you had such a prodigious talent for brazenly propounding twisted half-logic.
Of course, I would say all this. I'm a paid-up, (if junior), member of the "Anglo-Saxon studies mafia". I've been thoroughly brainwashed and now I'm cowering in some dark corner of my ivory tower, too terrified to confront the "common sense" of M. J. Harper, too blinkered to comprehend the dreadful truth and see my whole world come crumbling down about me. You see, that's how the likes of M. J. Harper operate. His argument works in basically the same way as a conspiracy theory. He cobbles together a series of "anomalies" in Anglo-Saxon history, often these are some of the most hotly debated, and well considered subjects in the whole field, although he always maintains that academics have never noticed them. He then completely denies, disregards, or misrepresents the serious academic response to these issues, and jumps to whatever fantastical conclusion he has already settled on. As is the case with any good conspiracy theory, anyone who voices dissent either has a vested interest in maintaining the lie, or is simply scared of the truth. So that's me taken care of, and he doesn't half like to gloat about it. M. J. Harper clearly thinks he has the most incredible mind, so much so, that at times his self-congratulatory tone becomes positively embarrassing.
If you are really interested in Anglo-Saxon history, and are prepared to engage with the actual evidence, which is there, in spite of what M. J. Harper will tell you, then go to your nearest bookshop or library, pick up a book on the period, even a rubbish one, so long as it has footnotes and a bibliography, and follow the references. Yes, often we don't have all the answers, and there is little in the history of the period that isn't open to speculation, that's what it's all about, but wild and totally unsupported flights of fancy, based on a childish, bloody-minded determination to snub academics are not helpful. I suppose the most depressing thing is that, judging by some of the other reviews here, a lot of people are gullible enough to go along with Harper's insidious, 'Emperor's-new-clothes' style of demagoguery.
I realise the tone of this review is pretty confrontational, but to my mind, that is appropriate considering the shamelessly insulting attitude that M. J. Harper adopts towards anyone who might dare to challenge his piffle. His entire argument is based on defaming anyone with any understanding of the issues in question and caricaturing their views so that he can get away with saying anything he cares to dream up. That it comes in a smart edition, with so many positive testimonies gives the unfortunate impression that the book has some credibility. It doesn't.
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