The English - Jeremy Paxman

How would you define being English? What is the essence of ?Englishness?? Seems an easy question to tackle, but the more you think about it, the clearer it becomes that England is no longer a nation of tea drinking, cucumber sandwich-eating shopkeepers and cricket enthusiasts, if it ever was! In this book, Jeremy Paxman digs deep beneath the surface of the English consciousness to try and discover just what it means to be English. It?s very easy to regard a nation based on the popular stereotype, and I experience that whenever it rains here as colleagues at work take great pleasure in referring to rain as ?English weather?. And of course, the first resort of the ...  Read the complete review

This book talks about being English in a funny way. It is very intelligently and well-written book including history, English language, sex food, how The English see foreigners, English people’s attitudes. To sum up, The English talks about the English stereotypes. In this book, Jeremy Paxman is trying to find answers to the questions about these subjects. He is writing by using experiments he gained when he was travelling, talking and reading. And he says that before he wrote this book, he saw himself as an English but in the book, he calls English people as “they”. A few question he set out to look for answers of, are: - ...  Read the complete review

Somewhat casually, I chose this book as my companion to a long trip to Indonesia. Paxman's does a good job of describing the development of the English character, if this exists, over time. Paxman writes very well and for a holiday, this book is the perfect mix of "easy to read" prose with a good degree of provocative thoughts. What I appreciated most of the book was the clarity of the points brought forward by Paxman. The many historical references were pretty interesting. I found also very helpful his description of different types of "English" people at various points in time. For the posh aristocrat English there was always a ...  Read the complete review

Thsi is certainly one of the cheaper books I had to read for my dissertation, and also probably one of the least academic. Paxman covers a wide range of territory, most of it sadly cliched and hardly innivotive. That said Paxman's range of contacts, sourcesand his dry humuor and highly readable writing style means that it is a book I would reccomend. Its time howver may have already passed, the devolution debate it over, the English question as a constituional agenda has proved a damp squib and independece in Scotland looks a decade or so away. That said , it obviously gives him the chance to relaunch the book with a new chapter or so in five years when the topic ...  Read the complete review

It used to be easy to define the English, they were "polite, unexcitable, reserved, and had hot-water bottles instead of a sex life," so begins Paxman. But then something changed. In this book Paxman asks varous questions about what it means to be English. There have been a spate of such books over the past couple of years as people have begun to question their sense of national identity due in part to the rise of Europe and devolution. Paxman's book is not too accademic and is easy to read. He has read widely but not obscurely and you will be familiar with the majority of his sources. Paxman looks at English attitudes to food, foreigners, ...  Read the complete review