Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens

by David Mitchell

thinking outside boxes can sometimes result in thousands of young men getting buried in them.

Monarchy is what England has instead of a sense of identity.

We’ve never agreed on anything and the royal family have long since stopped taking the lead. They just smile and keep it vague. This was the late queen’s greatest talent: being the screen on to which everyone was invited to project their own views.

What happened before is the best explanation of what happened next.

This book, then, is an anecdotal attempted explanation of England, focusing on what I find most interesting. More often than not, that has something to do with a person wearing a sparkly metal hat.

A big threat to our current civilization is the persistent post-Victorian assumption of progress.