How England Made the English
Harry Mount
How England Made the English
For all their sophistication, Roman roads are responsible for the narrowness of our train seats today. The first Victorian trains were built to the same width as horse-drawn wagons; they, in turn, were designed to fit the ruts left in the road by Roman chariots. In this book, Harry Mount explains how our national characteristics - our sense of humour, our hobbies, our favourite foods and our behaviour with the opposite sex - are all defined by our nation's extraordinary geography, geology, climate and weather. You will learn how we would be as freezing cold as Siberia without the Gulf Stream; why we drive on the left-hand side of the road; why the Midlands became the home of the British curry. It identifies the materials that make England, too: the faint pink Aberdeen granite of kerbstones; that precise English mix of air temperature, smell and light that hits you the moment you touch down at Heathrow.
3.2 out of 5 based on 5 reviews
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
History, Society, Politics & Philosophy |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
368 |
| RRP |
|
| Date of Publication |
May 2012 |
| ISBN |
978-0670919130 |
| Publisher |
Viking |
| |
For all their sophistication, Roman roads are responsible for the narrowness of our train seats today. The first Victorian trains were built to the same width as horse-drawn wagons; they, in turn, were designed to fit the ruts left in the road by Roman chariots. In this book, Harry Mount explains how our national characteristics - our sense of humour, our hobbies, our favourite foods and our behaviour with the opposite sex - are all defined by our nation's extraordinary geography, geology, climate and weather. You will learn how we would be as freezing cold as Siberia without the Gulf Stream; why we drive on the left-hand side of the road; why the Midlands became the home of the British curry. It identifies the materials that make England, too: the faint pink Aberdeen granite of kerbstones; that precise English mix of air temperature, smell and light that hits you the moment you touch down at Heathrow.
A Lust for Window Sills by Harry Mount
Reviews
The Literary Review
Tim Richardson
“Mount’s book begins unpromisingly, gets much better halfway through and ends rivetingly. The earlier chapters grapple with the chimerical topic of national character (related, apparently, to the weather, the soil and our island status), leading to generalisations such as: ‘Our weather has stayed much the same for centuries, global warming notwithstanding.’ ... Mount starts to get into his stride as he approaches his own home territory, architecture ... By chapter six (great title: ‘Georgian Hedge Funds: How Greedy Landowners Enclosed Our Fields and Drove John Clare Mad’), the ‘national character’ stuff has been ditched entirely. With one bound Mount is free and the book suddenly blossoms like an English spring.”
01/06/2012
Read Full Review
The Daily Telegraph
Clive Aslet
“Since railways started to shuttle building materials from one part of the country to another, we’ve been doing our best to eliminate the particularity that Mount enjoys. All hail to this book: it shows that more survives than one might have thought.”
29/05/2012
Read Full Review
The Sunday Telegraph
Peter Parker
“At times, the book’s overall theme seems in danger of disappearing under the weight of the particular, becoming a compendium of facts and figures that are fascinating but can be distracting. Another reason for an occasional loss of focus is that the book is written in very short paragraphs. A train of thought is often broken up, for no apparent reason, into several paragraphs, which makes for a choppy read. That said, Mount remains a consistently engaging guide ... Above all, Mount does not allow his vision to be clouded by sentimental patriotism.”
28/05/2012
Read Full Review
Standpoint
Roger Scruton
“I applaud the way in which Mount looks for deep explanations of what seem at first sight to be superficial facts, and I endorse his vision of the English peculiarity. If I have a reservation about his argument it concerns his somewhat selective approach to our national culture, with important components hardly mentioned despite their connection to the land. Religion puts in only a few appearances, and English music is dismissed in a single sentence, in which we learn that we have no Mozart or Beethoven to our credit. Nor do the great poets and painters occupy much space, even though it is they who gave rise to the collective effort to preserve our country from the ravages of the Industrial Revolution.”
01/05/2012
Read Full Review
The Guardian
Alexandra Harris
“Reading this book felt like being stuck in the "Curious things about England" round of the world's longest pub quiz. Observations about canals, trees, and tomato-growing habits appear as trivia, not because they are trivial but because Mount refuses to pause over any of them long enough to explain their significance. His favourite word is "also" because it allows him to link facts together without deciding exactly how they relate. Some of the statistics are indeed amazing, and the facts are quirkily evocative ... Does all this get us any closer to understanding Englishness? Not really, though that's a lot to ask.”
19/05/2012
Read Full Review