How England Made the English: From Why We Drive on the Left to Why We Don't Talk to Our Neighbours

Mount, Harry

ISBN 10: 0670919136 / ISBN 13: 9780670919130

Published by Viking, 2012

About this Item

Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. An apparently unread copy in perfect condition. Dust cover is intact with no nicks or tears. Spine has no signs of creasing. Pages are clean and not marred by notes or folds of any kind. Seller Inventory # wbs2854983646

Bibliographic Details

Title: How England Made the English: From Why We ...

Publisher: Viking

Publication Date: 2012

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Like New

About this title

Synopsis:

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.

This fascinating and witty book 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.

Review:

A lovely book, very engaging and easy to read. There are chapters on weather and soil and stone, on the history of hedges or the making of suburbia, all of them infectious did-you-knows. Mount is a natural and enthusiastic sharer of knowledge (Evening Standard)

Charming and nerdily fact-stuffed (Guardian)

Lively, a delight. Mount's paragraphs explode with information . . . I love all this, want more, and am given it. The sort of book, in its temperament and in its detail, that has helped to make England English (Spectator)

Mount is as perceptive as he is obsessive, and time and again he skewers with unfailing accuracy some aspect of our national character (Mail on Sunday)

'Fascinating. Mount's an intelligent, funny and always interesting companion (Daily Mail)