Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 England just a suburb of Milton Keynes September 29, 2008
I have been aware of Paul Kingsnorth's presence for sometime, occasionally reading his blog. I thought he really shone as a columnist, presenting the reader with small ideas to digest. I was unsure if he could keep up his enthusiasm throughout a whole book. I am glad to say that he certainly can.
We might be getting nostalgic about an England of yesteryear but as Paul states it is still around us we just have to look. In saying that we have to do more than look and actively stop shopping at some of the biggest shops and online sources. We are in danger of having one big shop that sells everything and being a nation of shoppers rather than shop keepers.
Read this book and don't let England become just a suburb of Milton Keynes.
Get Real: Goodbye Albion September 11, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
England's way of life changed so much during the Norman invasion (continental feudalism), dissolution of the monasteries (land ownership patterns), Industrial Revolution (urbanization and suburbanization, changes in the family) etc.
With the end of empire, came the colonials.
More so now with mass mobility in EU population, supported by most of today's political parties who support it, albeit checks.
Change disrupts lives, yet people adjust. Why bemoan? Move on, or emigrate.
BE ANGRY July 1, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I've just read this and loved it. Kingsnorth writes passionately and, where needed, beautifully. Many of us will recognise bits of the picture he paints, but what he does is to bring it (the human impact of the destruction of English localities) alive in a single compelling narrative. You need to read this; and having done so you need to be angry. If you are like me you may also feel strangely drawn to wanting to buy Kingsnorth a pint.
A couple of observations. Part of the solution, he says, is to give local communities power over the matters which affect them, and he finds encouragement in the Government's "community empowerment" initiative. I hope he's right, but it must be doubtful whether the Government will let anything get in the way of national economic performance. The department responsible for community empowerment is also responsible for some of the main agents/engines of economic performance - planning, housing, and "regional development".
Kingsnorth's argument, rightly in my opinion, emphasises the importance of relationship to place in human identity. But relationship to community is also important, and doesn't get a mention. At the same time as place is being destroyed, communities are also being disrupted by the rapid demographic change resulting from increasing mobility and mass immigration. Part of the solution to this may be to rebuild community through sense of place, but this wouldn't sit easily with Kingsnorth's desire for continuity with the past.
Statement of truth June 3, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
You'd think that a book entitled 'Real England' might have much of an audience north of Newcastle. But while the tales in this book, which detail the disappearance of local shops, the death of the farming community and the end of the pub, have a particular resonance for the English - who do retailing, farming and drinking better than just about anyone - the Scots, Welsh and Irish too can share the concerns raised in it. Because the sort of decline witnessed in this book is happening everywhere in Britain.
The book is relentlessly - and inevitably - depressing. That shouldn't be taken to mean that it isn't readable (on the contrary: I polished it off in a weekend). But the narrative throughout almost inescapably leads to the feeling that those small, almost unnoticed things that together made England special have passed forever. And yet... the author details pockets of resistance to the disappearing core of English life. Will this book inspire others to act, or simply a fine valedictory epitaph to England? Time will tell. But I urge you to read it either way.
I don't think other reviewers have mentioned the fantastic cover design - really clever and eye catching and a big factor in me picking up the book in the first place.
Something to read while waiting for the weekly Tesco Internet order to bedelivered May 18, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
A book that details the plight of farmers, landlords, lock keepers, barrow boys, and shopkeepers (and many more) trying to make a living despite the stranglehold of corporate power and a meddling government.
It identifies what England and an English life means to these people and how local communities and an English way of life is disappearing in the name of a supposed progress.
If like me you your childhood playground was the countryside, this is old news, however, the book still leaves you outraged at the true account of what has been lost over a comparatively short period of time.
Like Mr X, I would like to have read more about how we as a nation could counteract this current trend but, maybe the author has left it for someone else to lead a fight-back in the form of a manifesto?
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