This book is none of the things said on the tin: brief, irreverent, or pleasurable. It was incoherent, and fell into the horrible default state of crappy history books: a long Biblical-style list of undifferentiated kings with minor facts about them, vs. illustrating actual long-term trends using the individual examples. By far the worst part was the last 20% which was essentially a summary of the monarchs of England.

The good or interesting part was a summary of politics in the immediate post-WW2 period (Labor, then Conservative; rationing, and then the 70s...), but this book failed to do a good job of that, either.

Skip. ( )

The title sums it up. I enjoyed this book. ( )

"A new polity was being shaped, in which diversity of mind or action was unthinkable..." (54--Henry VIII)

Maids wore their mistress's castoff clothing, which led to frequent and embarrassing confusion between the two, a favorite theme of c18 drama. (64)

The destruction of the Stuart monarchy was costly beyond imagination. Of the King's three kingdoms, England lost 3.7% of its population; Scotland 6%; Ireland 41% (616K); the financial price was, according to one authority, 'not exceeded until the world wars of the twentieth century.'" (78) [skipped Wales. And also where's the source on this and the beginning/end points?]

one slave could produce nearly a ton of sugar in his lifetime (93)

In 1700, 250K Brits, or one out of 17 of the King's subjects lived overseas in the American mainland colonies. Three generations later, that population had swollen to 1.7 million, or one in every four, and their economic value as a market for British good and a source of supplies for raw materials had risen from 532K pounds to 2.8million pounds annually.

population increased 7.7 million to 10.5 million in the second half of the eighteenth century, and doubled 1800-1850

'the nation is only the aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of personal improvement'

"Although willing in the name of humanitarian and religious indignation to make certain social concessions--Catholic emancipation, the depoliticizing of royal patronage, and the abolition of slavery throughout the Empire with, of course, due respect for property, to the tune of 20 million pounds (more than the nation's annual military budget) to compensate slave owners--the government stubbornly held out against any political change. Only in 1832... (120)

What a witty and impressive book. The idea of distilling English history into one, small entertaining volume is genius, and Smith delivers everything she promises. My favorite part of her style is the ability to condense huge concepts into single, powerful sentences.

Her astute analysis of Britain's gradual fall from supremecy in Victorian and Georgian times was, for me, rather thought provoking, and her analysis of the years after WW2 even moreso.

The last quarter of the book is a section she aptly labels The Royal Soap Opera. In it she recounts the finny, morbid, creepy, and at times unbelievable events of each monarch's reign.

Whether you are a committed Anglophile or just looking for an entertaining read, this book delivers in spades. ( )