How Britain Really Works: Understanding the Ideas and Institutions of a Nation

by Stig Abell

'Absorbing . . . an intelligent and clear-eyed account of much that goes on in our country' Sunday Times

Getting to grips with Great Britain is harder than ever. We are a nation that chose Brexit, rejects immigration but is dependent on it, is getting older but less healthy, is more demanding of public services but less willing to pay for them, is tired of intervention abroad but wants to remain a global authority. We have an over-stretched, free health service (an idea from the 1940s that may not survive the 2020s), overcrowded prisons, a military without an evident purpose, an education system the envy of none of the Western world.

How did we get here and where are we going?

How Britain Really Works is a guide to Britain and its institutions (the economy, the military, schools, hospitals, the media, and more), which explains just how we got to wherever it is we are. It will not tell you what opinions to have, but will give you the information to help you reach your own. By the end, you will know how Britain works - or doesn't.

'Stig Abell is an urbane, and often jaunty guide to modern Britain, in the mould of Bill Bryson' Irish Times

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Economics, British Literature, Society, Audiobook

416 pages, Paperback

First published May 3, 2018

About the author

Stephen "Stig" Paul Abell is an English journalist, newspaper editor and radio presenter. He currently co-presents the Monday to Thursday breakfast show on Times Radio with Aasmah Mir.

Abell was from 2016 to 2020 editor of The Times Literary Supplement and from 2013 to 2016 managing editor of The Sun. He was formerly a fiction reviewer at The Spectator and reviewer at Telegraph Media Group as well as The Times Literary Supplement. He was also a presenter on LBC Radio.

Abell educated at Loughborough Grammar School, and went on to graduate with a double first in English from Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

In September 2001, Abell joined the Press Complaints Commission as a complaints officer; he completed other roles at the PCC including press officer, assistant director and deputy director before being appointed Director of the PCC on 19 December 2010. In August 2013, Abell joined The Sun as managing editor, his role until the end of April 2016.

In March 2014, Abell started co-presenting a show on LBC Radio alongside Sky News television presenter Kay Burley from 8am to 11am on Sundays. Burley was the main presenter while Abell reviewed the papers and added political comment.

From August 2014, the show was co-presented by Abell and LBC's Petrie Hosken. In January 2015, he was given his own show from 8 am to 10 am on Sundays. From April 2016, Abell moved to the afternoon slot on Sundays of 3 pm to 6 pm.

Abell has been heavily criticized for publishing an article in 2015 by Katie Hopkins. The article argued for "gunships sending these boats back to their own country", and described migrants as "like cockroaches". It concluded that Britain should "force migrants back to their shores and burn the boats".

In May 2016, Abell became the editor of The Times Literary Supplement, succeeding Sir Peter Stothard, who had edited the newspaper for the previous 14 years. He held the post until June 2020, when he was succeeded by Martin Ivens.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 2 out of 5]

Philip Pullman gives this book a really stunningly ridiculous blurb on the front cover:

full of interesting glimpses of the way Britain works

But if your whole book is about how Britain works – nay, how it really works – shouldn’t we readers be hoping for more than glimpses? When I go to the zoo I wanna see the whole rhino, not a glint of his horn in the mid distance. Actually that’s a very bad example, I don’t want to see no rhino in no zoo. But now I’m digressing all over myself.

As indeed does Stig Abell. His book is digression, rambling and wandering, a hotch potch of facts & factlets you could get from the last 3 years of British newspapers plus a continual muggy drizzle of stats and some of those blatantly wrong – British productivity did not zoom up by 36% in 2000, that must be a misprint – and then he will say, talking about the obscure nomenclature Parliament still employs sometimes

There is no reason why MPs can’t just resign, of course, but our national institutions do nothing simply if they can be done picaresquely

I’m pretty sure he means “picturesquely” here, which would actually make sense. (And I don’t like that “they” either, it should be “it”.)

So there’s that, and then his really aggravating way of distributing footnotes around in two forms, at the bottom of the page AND at the back of the book, four or five each page, so you are constantly stopping & starting his sentences.

Once he gets through his infodrench he now and then makes some good comments on what should be done, or what we should be thinking about, such as when he asks what the British armed forces are for now – something I have often wondered myself. But it’s like trying to find the sixpence in a Christmas pudding. You’re probably going to die of thickening of the arteries before you do.

Over and above all of this is the tone of the whole book – that every institution from the political, economic, education, health, law and the media are rubbish and falling rapidly into chaos, that Britain is up the creek without a paddle, everything is a terrible mess, and that’s before we really get into Brexit.

I have been hearing this for donkey’s years and what do you know, Britain is still here. And what’s more, do these groaning moaners think other countries aren’t in the soup as well? Oh, okay, apart from Sweden – we all know everything works in tip top fashion there. Maybe Switzerland too. But everywhere else?

The soup is now general, there are no more paddles left anywhere, not on ebay, not anywhere.

Typical Abellian sentence :

It is not clear how this will change any time soon.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

[Lucy Banks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A refreshingly down-to-earth exploration of the mechanisms that keep the country functioning...and how some are failing us badly.

Okay, I'll admit it, I was prepared for this book to be all about Brexit. After all, that's the big political topic de jour; and at present, it seems to colour every aspect of the UK's existence.

However, this book wasn't just about Brexit at all, though the topic was mentioned a few times throughout. Instead, it's a thorough, engaging examination of the key institutions that prop up our country - from education and law, to the wonderful NHS.

The author takes the reader on a history of these institutions, with fascinating nuggets of information about the workings of the legal system (for example), or the issues with the media. Because it's written in a highly accessible way, even laypeople like me can read it with ease (a refreshing change) and the engaging tone means that it's a pleasurable read too.

Another aspect that I really appreciated about this book is that it spurred me to think more about the things we take for granted. The economy is one great example. When you actually stop and think about it, it's all completely bonkers - how we have 'money' in the banks that doesn't really exist in real terms. It also got me into some in-depth conversations with friends and family, and not least, made me even more determined to keep highlighting to others the value of our wonderful, free health system.

Admittedly, some sections I enjoyed more than others (I found the media section a little dry, which I was surprised by, as I was expecting it to be a juicy read - however, I loved the stories of the author's boozy lunches when he worked in the industry); but overall, it was a book that was well worth reading. Very informative and useful when chatting about such matters with others. It always helps to have a bit of insight into the subjects we debate so heatedly, isn't it?

[Miriam Smith (A Mother’s Musings) · Rating 3 out of 5]

"How Britain Really Works" written by Stig Abell is a very interesting, intelligent and informative book for those interested in the analysis of understanding the ideas and institutions on how this country works. Guiding us on Britain and its institutions including education, the military, law and order and many more, explaining just how we got to wherever it is we are, this book is perfect for giving you the information to help you reach your own opinions on "How Britain Works".
Unfortunately a lot of this book did go over my head but it did make for an intriguing read with some very interesting glimpses into how Britain works (or doesn't) and if this book is your reading genre then I highly recommend it.

3 stars

[Tariq Mahmood · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an expat who has lived in the UK for the past 18 years of my life, I did find the definitions refreshingly fresh and frank. I think the frank bits were a result of the author’s experiences working in LBC. And in a typical british way he does not at all present any improvement suggestions but rather on the history, leaving the future unknown, which os apt I think.

The british are a remarkable culture, with few fault-lines.

[Francisco Segundo · Rating 3 out of 5]

It fills its purpose by covering the most important aspects that shape a country's culture and society (politics, economics, law and order, identity) through a narrative not so mechanic as a wikipedia article would be.

It should be mandatory reading for those who wish to live there, because it provides a glimpse (just a glimpse, its a book vs centuries) in the building blocks of the current issues and thoughts occupying people's mind. I wish every country had one like this.

I think it must be boring for locals, but for outsiders is really interesting.

Not 4 star review because in my opinion has an excessive left bias, not even trying to give the other side point of view.

[Sam Chambers · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is worthless.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable read but it wasn’t quite what I expected. I wanted to hear more about how decisions are really made within the UK. The ways in which change does happen (or is blocked from happening).

I did learn some new things about the history of the UK to bring us to where we are now.

It is biased towards an overview of England rather than looking in depth at the whole of the UK (especially when it came to the end part of the book and attitudes to immigration and divides across class - these can differ from England to Scotland to Wales).

The influence of higher education and academic expertise on the way the UK works isn’t given space either.

But it would be hard to fit everything into one book!

[Sam Tornio · Rating 4 out of 5]

This worked really well for me as a kind of mental sweeping up after David Edgerton’s unwieldy dissection of the notion of the British “nation”.

[Sarah Clement · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn’t a book about Brexit, but it’s a book that explains the journey towards Brexit Britain in many ways. Among the books I have read about British culture, politics, history, and national identity, this book is certainly joining the ranks as one that I will recommend to others. It’s explained to me, as an immigrant, so much about the current state of play and how we got there. A lot of which I already knew, some of which I question or disagree with, but most of which is balanced and frankly just true. Abell does a great job of weaving facts and figures together with anecdote and further explanations. And for a book that covers such a broad sweeping overview of topics about Britain, it is astonishingly short and not repetitive, even though there are really just a few consistent threads that run through the book when you boil it all down. I read the audio version, and I would also recommend that, if you are so inclined, because he has a nice voice and reads it in a rather conversational, natural style.

[D.K. Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stig Abell is quite a fascinating chap and that comes across very much in this book. Almost a contemporary of mine (we both grew up in the Midlands around the same time, and he went to the same school in Loughborough as a friend of mine but six years later - he hated it whereas my friend loved it); he takes a very middle ground as befits a fellow Midlander and I get it entirely.

That said, his middle ground often means swinging widely from extremes and I had to keep my prejudices under tight control when he revealed he worked at the Sun newspaper (can anything good come out of the Sun?). Yet he also worked for Press Complaints Commission - the enemy, as it were - so he can't be all bad. Indeed, his taste in books and visual media - which he gives as lists for the reader to explore further should they so wish - is spot on. Well, it's the same as mine, which is pretty much the same thing.

And that, in a sense, is the whole point of the book. It's all a bit of muddle. Britain, I mean - not just the book. Abell superbly takes us on a whirlwind historical tour of all the major components of what makes Britain, Britain - Economics, Health, Politics, Education, the Media, Law and Order and so on. From this he (and we) glean some sense of what it means to be British. It's not pretty, but it's also quite comforting. The British are nothing if not paradoxical. It's not as harsh as Felton's book which sees us all as 'bellends' but nor is it as soft and loving as Bryson's British travelogues.

Abell's starting point for writing the book is harking back to the pre-internet days when the only source of information was the trusty encyclopaedia. Such books were always less than reliable, not just because they would easily go out of date, but also because they were written by writers with subjective views. Nevertheless, just like Abell, I still have my encyclopaedias which date right back to the 1950s and still get a thrill of knowledge-seeking when I open them. In a sense, 'How Britain Really Works' is a homage to such biased but one-stop works where you could dip in and get information - albeit flawed - at the reach of a hand rather than the click of a button.

And it works! There's very little in Abell's book to actively disagree with. He sticks, on the whole, to facts but litters around enough witticisms and his own thoughts on matters to avoid this being a dry academic tome. It is very readable, very likeable (despite the aforementioned time at the Sun) and just about manages to stay on the right side of smug.

So why not five stars with this review? Simply because the publication of the book (2019) made it out of date almost immediately. Abell focuses hugely on Corbyn - now largely gone since the election - and Brexit - still there but superseded by the Covid pandemic. Boris Johnson gets barely a look-in and the ruminations on the economic side of Brexit really now don't have the same issues as they did before the pandemic occurred. While none of this has gone away, Abell really needs to update the book soon. Not yet, mind you. At the time of writing, we're still in the midst of the pandemic and Brexit hasn't yet actually happened. But come 2021, a revised version would be perfect - and I'll revise this review and give 5 stars in response.

Of course, such books will always go out of date eventually and there's no issue with that. Indeed, there's a feeling from Abell that he almost welcomes that. But it is unfortunate that when he was writing the book Corbyn was on the crest of a wave that looked set to put him into Number 10 and Brexit looked like the most dominating influence of British and European life for years to come. Who knew that nature would say "hold my beer" to this and change the course of world history in one fell swoop? Everything has changed, and yet, nothing has changed - or is likely to. And that, is perhaps fitting - certainly in keeping with the nature of the British - and, I'm pretty certain, absolutely in keeping with the author's views.

[Willow Rankin · Rating 3 out of 5]

How Britain Really Works, explains the story of how Britain got to where she is today, through the many institutions that govern every country including but not limited too, economy, law and order, health care, education, the police and more. Written by Stig Abell, this is a glimpse into how Britain works.
When I initially read the introduction of the book, Stig is an ex sun Editor, I was certainly concerned, the Sun isn't known for their unbiased view of current events, and leaves the reader, in my opinion uninformed of what is really going on. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of detail contained within the book.
However, this is very left leaning and as a person who lives in Wales and not England, the obsession with England (the Education chapter starts off with an explanation of the English schooling system) did put me slightly off.
If you are a British citizen, for me this was a decent place to start to learn about events that have happened in our not so distant past (the Irish troubles, the Profuma affair, the invention of the NHS and the schooling system as we know it), but as with all these topics and more, many more indepth books have been written, and this only touches the surface.
It has made me realise how little I know about contemporary Britain, that I have not learned from school or picked up through conversations with others.
Overall, if you are looking for a good introduction to life in modern day Britain, this is a decent place to start.

[Ben]

Very good book! Great writing style - engaging, funny, clear. And interesting content - it covers a lot of ground in surprising detail (doesn’t have much of an angle/USP, just discusses different institutions and events). Loved the references to fiction and historical example. Think it presents a pretty comprehensive image of Britain.

Some issues though: it’s fairly out of date now - only 7 years, but that makes a difference for this content. And there are a couple of over-claims and minor errors/typos that damage the credibility. Think it’s more successful as a text on how Britain operates than how it needs to change.

[Miriam hoimir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yoh this oke rambles. Makes for very slow progress. Not only does he need more footnotes than Terry Pratchett at his worst, he also deems himself a Bill Bryson.
While it's understandable that a newspaper person thinks he can write... they should also be the first to realise that they, more than anyone, need a serious reality check on that.
There's an interesting insight every now and then. It's just very hard to find them.

[Chris Dodd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Of course it is written by a very liberal thinker and hence suits my tastes. But it is full of articulate, sensible ideas. He does not shy away from issues that are considered sensitive and he provides a clear template for discussing such things.
A book I will re-read in the future.

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good writer, and very funny at times, he gave an interesting broad overview of many differing areas of society. However, from experience, the chapter on the military was filled with very underdeveloped and immature insights that make me question the legitimacy of the other topics of the book (Health, education, economy, etc).

[Nic Lane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Idea was appealing but text doesn’t quite deliver

The concept of this book was quite interesting. But the content doesn’t align well enough to meet my expectations. Worth finishing, once I had started though.

[vladimiro sassone · Rating 2 out of 5]

a long list of facts, most interesting, some less, but it remains at the level of a long moan. not much stays with you after reading.

[Joey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting book that summaries the history and problems facing a lot of Britain's key institutions. Worth a read if you don't know much about them.

"Britain today is terribly constructed to drive that sort of economic growth. In the seventies, our investment ratio 28 was 20 per cent; it is now 15 per cent. This is, and it is seldom discussed, the lowest in the Western world. Spending on research and development is well beneath the global average."

"The UK spent 8.8 per cent of its GDP – more than £150 billion – recapitalising the banks. That’s more than it spends on the NHS in a year."

"why can you give £150 billion to negligent wealthy bankers to cover their mistakes, but not support someone with a disability? The latter is a hard question to answer indeed. Or rather easy to answer but hard to stomach: we live in a society where banking needs to be sustainable; we live in a society where a disabled person’s plight affects only that person."

"‘In 1965 I was a fireman earning £1,000 a year and I bought a house for £3,500 with a mortgage of three times my salary. Today that very ordinary property is valued at £650,000, so a buyer would need a £50,000 deposit and an income of £200,000 a year. This shows how utterly impossible the situation is for young people.’"

"The UK GDP is forecast to increase by around 15 per cent by 2021; our spending on the NHS by only 5 per cent. In Britain, we spend less on healthcare than most other civilised countries: we rank thirteenth out of the fifteen countries that originally made up the EU; we spend less than the EU average now as a whole. To match the average of EU spending, the NHS budget would have to be increased to £185 billion."

"Facebook might take all the advertising earnings from journalism, but it does not fund any of the actual content. The BBC funds high-quality news-gathering, and high-quality programme-making, and can continue to do so thanks to the licence fee."

"Franklin offered to my mind a humane answer when he said: ‘Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.’"

"As the saying goes, British justice is open to all, like the Ritz Hotel."

[Adrian Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really clearly written primer to British society, its main institutions, the challenges it faces, and the history that led to these challenges. Abell has a light tone which allows him to cover a range of material and make the book enjoyable to read. There is scholarship here, nonetheless, captured in the references as well as odd-ball digressions that mostly fall this side of annoying.

He covers: politics, the economy, health, education, the military, identity, law and order, and the media and in each case diagnoses, I felt very acutely, the main issues we face. Mostly, he maintains a centrist, commonsense position, though I think the section on education was more partisan. The solutions offered were mostly sensible (instead of renovating parliament at a cost of £4 billion move it to the regions and shift our London centric focus, get rid of grammar schools, charitable status for public schools, legalise drugs as Portugal has done, don't send so many people to prison....) though here is perhaps where his centrist position and failure to address environmental issues, lets down the book. In my view, global warming is the single biggest issue we will face in the next 20 years and radical action is needed (see Naomi Klein's 'This Changes Everything'). I suspect because environmental concerns are rarely just national issues, he left these out of his analysis.

In short, if you ever wanted to know just how much immigration we have had in the last 20 years and how it has become such a political hot topic; or, how the NHS has been restructured since 1948, how we fund it and how this compares to Europe; the impact of Facebook and Google on print media and a range of other questions this book will address them. You'll learn a lot and probably end up cursing our politicians for refusing to grasp the nettle and be entertained. The book also has a curious appendix where he lists 50-60 books that will help you to understand each of the institutions he focuses on, some are non-fiction, but most are novels from Trollope to Wodehouse. What a typically eccentric British way of saying, this is how you understand the British - read their fiction.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the things that this book does well, is give you enough information for you to make your own opinion about the topic without sounding like it is preaching or trying to influence your opinions. And that is quite refreshing to read, as I think anything that tries to influence what you think about a topic is something that needs to be approached with caution.

The topics are well chosen and well researched. There’s nothing in the topics that is out of the realm of possibility and there are enough new nuggets of information in them, that I felt like I learned something new in each chapter. While some of the information is something you might vaguely have guessed or assumed, it’s nice to see it laid out in front of you in black and white.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is wanting to get a better, more in depth picture as to what Britain is like. I wouldn’t say that it is for someone who only has a general interest because some of the topics do go into quite a lot of detail.

[Peter Timson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't own this book I borrowed it and am glad that I did.

There are many similar books and I do own some of them. Having read them all, in some frantic search for some understanding, I probably wouldn't have bought this book in order to read just another. How Britain Really Works, however, is an intelligent discourse and summary on where we all are. It pretty much sums up my views too, formed from reading all those other texts: I wish I could have written it myself.

Very easy to read and with a dry humour too. The further reading section and even the notes at the back are welcome too. Footnotes in the text were welcome too... at least to me.

Like the author I take the view "..... possible? Yes. Plausible? Likely no." I'm not quite so optimistic that we'll muddle on either. The book predates Covid-19 and maybe this will be a seismic event: somehow I doubt this too. It would be interesting to have the author's views in due course.

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who came to call the UK my home, this book was good to give more information and context about the different topics - especially those I don't really deal with direct (e.g. education).
I clearly see why some reviews mention the number of notes and footnotes - they are numerous and somehow extensive (~15% of the overall book page count on my version). Sometimes they could also be better placed, for example a single one at the end of the phrase rather than in the middle of a sentence. In addition, the author also writes in a conversational style which makes sense when someone is speaking (and thus uses pauses and tone and etc) but could be made simpler for a written book - maybe it works for the audio book version? Anyway, these two aspects can be a bit off-putting, depending on the reader.
I'd still recommend the book for those who don't have a general overview of the topics covered and who are flexible about different writing/ grammar styles and footnotes.

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an interesting and well written book but it's not without its faults.

For example, some of the reviews called it "witty" and "humorous". I struggled to find much of that if I'm honest.

Some of the chapters, in particular the one about the military is just a straight history lesson - so it's not really a "How it really works" when in essence it's "How it worked about a hundred years ago".

The chapter on journalism / newspapers is probably the one with the most insight, given Stig's job I'm not surprised. And I must admit the Parliament one was pretty good.

The last chapter goes a bit woke too for my liking, it feels like it's a bit of forced virtue signalling to end the book.

What made me crease was the author genuinely believing that "TL;DR" actually stands for "Top Line; Don't Read". What?

Try "Too Long; Didn't Read". Ever heard of Google?

All in all, an interesting book but it's very far from a book that tells you how Britain REALLY works.

[Jood · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are so many adjectives I could use to describe this book: fascinating, absorbing, intriguing, entertaining, and none of them is misplaced. It's stuffed full of facts about the various aspects of life in Britain, staring with Economics, through Health, Education, Media and on and on, but written in an easy, almost chatty style which makes it a perfect book to pick up and put down, and pick up again – and again.

Ironically I'm reading the chapter abut Health and the NHS at a time which affects me personally as an elderly relative is in hospital. I visit him daily and can see for myself how the system is not working, thanks to the buffoons In Charge.....you know....the ones we elected to spend our money wisely. Ha!

That's what's annoying. It's like peeling an orange to find the fruit inside is rotten.

Anyone who really wants to understand what is going on in the country should read this.

Thanks to Amazon for a complimentary copy to review.

[Dave Allan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was quite a succinct and strong narrative covering the core structures of British Society. Rarely for me, I found the end notes quite addictive as they added knowledge, context and additional stories (that's end notes as well as foot notes).

Stig Abel seems to strive for a non political view and his career has enough depth and breadth for him to have good insight and knowledge as a basis for the book. Research is clearly very detailed. Of course it follows an agenda but that's because it's nigh on impossible for anyone not to have a view.

I found it really easy to read, interesting with a good flow through topics and facts regarding history and current position. I'll be passing it on to younger friends (under 30) to help them hopefully get a better understanding of the country they live in.

[Andrew Pratley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Refreshing up to date survey of Britain & the British. Refreshing in that it is not written by some old codger but by a man from Loughborough who was still in his thirties at the time of writing. It covers the past, present & has some thoughts about the future.

What it finds is that it is a country that is a bit of mess which has an endearing habit of muddling through.This view of the British Isles accords with my own.

The book is written in an engaging opinionated style & his full of useful information that most of us know some of whilst not knowing quite enough for our own good. Learning more about how the country your living in really works is very beneficial.

Highly recommended.

[Rob Sedgwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wide-ranging book with chapters on Economics, Politics, Health, Education and Media (amongst others). It's slightly outdated (covering Brexit before anything had been agreed, but pre-Covid) but much of the contents are still relevant. It explains the political system, the health behemoth that is the NHS, our education system, the military and the British press (which the author has worked in and with). Much of this involves understanding our institutions' history, which partly explains why many things are the way they are today. Some chapters will interest readers more than others, but the scope is vast and I enjoyed the style.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 / 5 stars

Stig Abell is a bloody knowledgeable bloke. This book covers basically everything you could hope to know about everything you need a basic grasp of - the only thing he didn’t touch on which I wish he had is the Falklands war. I can’t give this 4 stars as I’d be lying if I said it was thrilling. However more importantly, it was at no point boring, which I think is a more impressive feat in itself. This is the kind of book which, due to its content, will become out of date quite quickly, so I can only recommend that, if you want to read this, do so now!!

[Kylie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in small pieces over many months, which might incline me to like it less. Edge-of-your-seat thriller, it is not, but it is a balanced yet personal summary of recent history with references and anecdotes and that makes it even more valuable and appreciated by me, an immigrant to the UK.

I liked how it was organized by theme instead of chronologically because I know I will want to refer back to this book when I forget, in a few weeks, the difference between state and private and independent schools, for example.

Added bonus: fiction reading lists for every chapter.

[Luke Jenner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book as ‘backburner’ over 7 months or so.

It’s entertaining and informative, leaving a lot of room for you to ponder the big questions. At first I found the footnotes off-putting but I came to like them after a while. It has wide an incredibly wide coverage of topics which are each covered with enough detail to leave you broadly confident in the area. As a Citizenship/Sociology teacher I found it really useful.

I really don’t know what I could add to this book, hence the 5 stars.