| The English: A Portrait of a People | 
 enlarge | Author: Jeremy Paxman
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  76 reviews
Sales Rank: 72754
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0140267239
Dewey Decimal Number: 941
EAN: 9780140267235
ASIN: 0140267239
Publication Date: September 30, 1999
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Publisher: Penguin Books LtdDate of Publication: 1999Binding: PaperbackDescription: Paperback,ex-library, with usual stamps and markings, in good all round condition. Ships within 24 hours, email us with any questions.pp.
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Amazon.co.uk Review
What is it about the English? Not the British overall, not the Scots, not the Irish or Welsh, but the English. Why do they seem so unsure of who they are? As Jeremy Paxman remarks in his preface to The English, being English "used to be so easy". Now, with the Empire gone, with Wales and Scotland moving into more independent postures, with the troubling spectre of a united Europe(and despite the raucous hype of "Cool Britannia"), the English seem to have entered a collective crisis of national identity.Jeremy Paxman has set himself the task of finding just what exactly is going on. Why, he wonders, "do the English seem to enjoy feeling so persecuted? What is behind the English obsession with games? How did they acquire their odd attitudes to sex and food? Where did they get their extraordinary capacity for hypocrisy?" He ranges widely in pursuit of answers, sifting through literature, cinema and history. It is an intriguing investigation, encompassing many aspects of national life and character (such as it is), including the obligatory visit to that baffling phenomenon, the funeral of Princess Diana. Yet Paxman finds something fresh and interesting to say about even that now rather threadbare topic. In the end, he seems to find further questions to ask instead of answers. But why not? To him it is a sign that the English are acquiring a new sense of self. And some indication of this might lie in the obvious response to his remark that the English, being top of the British Imperial tree, had nicknames for the fellow nationalities--Jock, Taffy, Paddy and Mick--but there was no corresponding name for an Englishman. Of course, there is now, and it comes from one of the bits of empire to which so many undesirables were exported: Whinging Pom. --Robin Davidson
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| Customer Reviews: Read 71 more reviews...
 Enjoyable and informative July 17, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Paxo writes well and is a joy to read. This book is far ranging on who we English are, our strange national characteristics which relate to our history. "Like a pair of newly-weds in a sabotaged car, every people sets off into the future clattering behind it the tin-cans of its history." Here are many tin cans and some glimpses too of the possible road ahead. I would recommend this book to visitors to our country. The only slight draw back is that reading it ten years after it was written I sense it is slightly dated. It predates 9-11, the rise of Islamic militancy and a new huge wave of immigration, to say nothing of the effects of devolution and the rise of Scottish nationalism. All these are now having an effect on what it means to be English today. Some of his chapters are masterfull and memorable. Our animosity to the French and the sentimentality over Diana are examples.
Enjoyable and informative July 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Paxo writes well and is a joy to read. This book is far ranging on who we English are, our strange national characteristics which relate to our history. "Like a pair of newly-weds in a sabotaged car, every people sets off into the future clattering behind it the tin-cans of its history." Here are many tin cans and some glimpses too of the possible road ahead. I would recommend this book to visitors to our country. The only slight draw back is that reading it ten years after it was written I sense it is slightly dated. It predates 9-11, the rise of Islamic militancy and a new huge wave of immigration, to say nothing of the effects of devolution and the rise of Scottish nationalism. All these are now having an effect on what it means to be English today. Some of his chapters are masterfull and memorable. Our animosity to the French and the sentimentality over Diana are examples.
Good attempt June 12, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Doesn't always flow perfectly, but that is because it is very dense and well written.
Reading it is not effortless, but well worth it
 Heavy weather May 4, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I expected much from this book, particularly given the glowing praise blazoned on its back cover. Oh dear!
Despite (or because) it is so heavily referenced -a commendable sign of scholarly groundwork- ultimately Paxman has achieved little more than to string together a mass of quotations, references and extracts in a singularly meandering and confusing stream of consciousness.
As for humour, I am an ordinary middle-of-the-road Englishman from a less privileged background than Jeremy. And I didn't laugh. Not once.
Sadly, the self-indulgent Paxman demonstrates neither the warm sense of joy nor common touch of the much more grounded, observant and incisively witty Bryson.
Sometimes Inaccurate and often wide of the mark March 25, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Kate Fox highlighted some of Paxman's errors and misconceptions in her more informative "Watching the English" book. Some of Paxman's book ought to be called "Watching the Middle Class English" as his statements are at odds with reality or are only true of that social stratum. As for his assertion that the English lack a cafe culture where we can while away hours over a coffee and a newspaper, we have had a cafe culture - from Lyons Corner House teashops right to the modern day coffeeshop franchises. It's entertaining, but if you are genuinely interested in who the English think they are and why they behave in certain ways, Kate Fox's book is more accurate. To be honest, I sometimes wondered if the author was writing about the same England I live in.
As for not living in the street like our continental friends ... with our climate and our privacy culture?
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