‘A short history of England’ by Simon Jenkins

Below is the book review I wrote on the bus in August 2014…

Memories of what I learnt back at school are coming back. It took an overdose of names and dates dropping administered by this book. But what I found most interesting are the anecdotes that never make it into history books...

- 1337-1453: Hundred Years' War. The French used canons while archery was critical to the English, so much in fact that King Edward banned all other sports including football for his fellow Englishmen to solely concentrate on archery. However, what Edward did not prepare for is battlefield dysentery: the 'Black Death' reduced the English population from 5.5m to 4m, the largest drop in history.

- The book keeps referring to Shakespeare's 'deformation' of English history e.g. as in his work on Richard III (1452-1485). But what matters is that the darkness of the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth ('the greatest ruler in English history', 1533-1603) was illuminated by Shakespeare's dramatic genius. And his plays have been played in London theaters ever since.

- By 1730, there was a gin shop for every 11 dwellings in London. Gin was so cheap that you could get drunk for a penny and drop dead for two... until the 1736 Gin Act was voted and the sale of gin started being taxed.

- England's Second Hundred Years' War with France (1689-1815) was only over when Napoleon Bonaparte died on the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena in 1821. All up, war with France lasted 400 years, but this didn't prevent me getting the UK citizenship a few years ago. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

- Queen Victoria (1819-1901) and Albert enjoyed a matrimonial bliss, sharing their time between Windsor, Balmoral and Osbourne, on the Isle of Wight. Albert got a Swiss cottage constructed there... Swiss cottages blossomed around the country as a result, including one in London, near South Hampstead. I used to live in the area before heading for Australia and the oddity of a Swiss cottage in central London finally makes sense to me.

- 11/11/1918 is Armistice Day or 'Poppy Day', as named after the flowers that grew over the trenches, as if they were coloured by the blood of the Fallen.

- The UK refused to sign the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The country wanted to remain independent. But in 1963 and 1967, they wanted to join the party after all but this time, it was De Gaulle's turn to say 'NON'. The swinging sixties at their best...

- Come the 80 and 90's, and London was becoming more like New York, a city that never sleeps... helped by Thatcherism. Thatcher was relentless: she was going to bed late, rising early after 4 hours' sleep to head to Downing Street. The Tories were nicknamed the 'nasty party' for a reason, going as far as to say there was no such thing as 'society'. This is rather ironic because if England has been a success as a country, it's mostly because of the openness of English society as a whole.

- The 'Naughties' (2000-2009) were marked by the Blair style and the New Labour. But security became an obsession for 'Cool Britannia' after the terrorist attacks in London (July 2005). Later, the GFC officially started with the market crash in autumn 2008. And bankers joined politicians as the most unloved people, with uninterrupted banker bashing ever since. This is not surprising coming from a country which has often been at war with itself... 'If you are not at peace with your friends, be at war with them', the saying goes.

To conclude: this is a well documented book, with a political history expertly told. The only thing missing is passion, but maybe, just maybe this is by design, and to stay true to the English style. 'Would you like a cup of tea my dear?'.

Overall, I give this book a rating of 3 out of 5. It's not really literature, only a good school manual.