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  • The English and Their History

  • By: Robert Tombs
  • Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
  • Length: 45 hrs and 32 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (1,240 ratings)
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The English and Their History

By: Robert Tombs
Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
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Summary

In The English and Their History, the first full-length account to appear in one volume for many decades, Robert Tombs gives us the history of the English people and of how the stories they have told about themselves have shaped them, from the prehistoric 'dreamtime' through to the present day.

If a nation is a group of people with a sense of kinship, a political identity and representative institutions, then the English have a claim to be the oldest nation in the world. They first came into existence as an idea, before they had a common ruler and before the country they lived in even had a name. They have lasted as a recognisable entity ever since, and their defining national institutions can be traced back to the earliest years of their history. The English have come a long way from those precarious days of invasion and conquest, with many spectacular changes of fortune.

Their political, economic and cultural contacts have left traces for good and ill across the world. This book describes their history and its meanings from their beginnings in the monasteries of Northumbria and the wetlands of Wessex to the cosmopolitan energy of today's England.

Robert Tombs draws out important threads running through the story, including participatory government, language, law, religion, the land and the sea, and the ever-changing relations with other peoples. Not the least of these connections are the ways the English have understood their own history, have argued about it, forgotten it, and yet been shaped by it. These diverse and sometimes conflicting understandings are an inherent part of their identity.

Rather to their surprise, as ties within the United Kingdom loosen, the English are suddenly beginning a new period in their long history. Especially at times of change, history can help us to think about the sort of people we are and wish to be.

This audiobook, the first single-volume work on this scale for more than half a century, and which incorporates a wealth of recent scholarship, presents a challenging modern account of this immense and continuing story, bringing out the strength and resilience of English government, the deep patterns of division, yet also the persistent capacity to come together in the face of danger.

©2015 Robert Tombs (P)2016 Audible, Ltd
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic reviews

"A work of supreme intelligence.... No history published this year has been of such resounding importance to contemporary debates. Tombs, who is both fearless and non-partisan, deserves to be rewarded with a life peerage for this book." (Richard Davenport-Hines, Observer)
"Learned, pithy and punchy, with a laudable sense of narrative sweep and a bracing willingness to offer bold judgments, [Tombs's] survey is a tremendous achievement, and deserves to become the standard history for years to come." (Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times)
"Packed with telling detail and told with gentle, sardonic wit...[a] vast and delightful book." (Ben Macintyre, The Times)

What listeners say about The English and Their History

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Unbalanced and Biased

Claims to be an unbiased History of England, could not be further from the truth !! Anything England has done wrong in their history was only slightly bad and everybody was doing the same or worse.

Lied and glossed over atrocities done to Ireland, Scotland, India and Africa. Claimed they only moved into South Africa to free black slaves from the Boers, nothing to do with Diamonds and Gold found there. The concentration camps they put the Boers in and mass killed women and children were completely swept under the carpet. “History is written by the victors “

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129 people found this helpful

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A big commitment, easily paid off!

This is the first history book I've read since school.

It seemed daunting with the size of it at a nuts 45+ hours and it's taken me months to get through.

Please don't let this stop you though from taking it on.

This book has helped me to have such a vastly more expansive view of history from our own little island perspective.

Not only that but it's made me fall even more deeply in love with my own country of birth!

I am so very proud to be English!

Thank you Robert!

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99 people found this helpful

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This is a masterpiece.

It's incredible that a subject so vast can be so comprehensively explored in one volume. Tombs manages it and does so with balance and insight. This is an exceptional work.
Far more than a chronological collection of facts and anecdotes, Tombs provides analysis which constantly appears somehow refreshing, vital, and incontrovertible. Perhaps this is why the book is recommended by people from across the political spectrum.
Highly recommend.

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83 people found this helpful

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Not my cup of tea

This is a very traditional top down look at history and the author’s political conservatism is evident throughout. You will find little here about class struggle and conflict. You also get a feeling that he cherry picks aspects of being English, whilst ignoring others to fit and support his political agenda. So not for me but I can imagine more UKIP supporting types would like it.

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64 people found this helpful

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Can't recommend enough

A brilliant, informative book, great narrator, very clear and engaging. I would highly recommend it.

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34 people found this helpful

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Thoroughly interesting and engaging work

Although initially slightly intimidated by the length sheer scale of this audiobook, the lure of its scope paired with such good reviews were too much to resist.

Having read a few other works on general English history, mostly due to a frustration at lack of coverage during my schooling throughout the 2000's, this book provided a perfectly pitched walkthrough of the series of events that lead to England's present state. For me personally, no topic was lingered on for too long, and coverage was good. Although focused on England, there is also enough discussion of events that occurred in other nations which add context to the reasons why these impacted those in England.

The final proportion covering the past 40 years (especially the last 20) were extremely refreshing, mostly just to remember events which today's constant news cycle make so easy to forget.

Interesting and thought-provoking...what more could you want from a book

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Biased and dull

It starts well enough, but when it gets to the more or less modern times - Victorian or so - it becomes very patently biased towards the colonialist, and hard-liberal-economy point of view, without much of an attempt at critical analysis or any sort of a balance; combined with hurray-patriotism - again, devoid of any criticality - it makes it rather cringesome to listen to. Modern historiography is something that happened to other historians, not this one, it seems. You get a slightly beautified version of a Whig stance instead.
The narration - mostly flat, but exaltedly intoning some bits - makes it worse. The narrative is equally flat, humourless, and is more akin to being hit on the head with a history book... for forty-five hours. The production leaves in some side noises like paper rustle, and what sounds like sharp intakes of breath.

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23 people found this helpful

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Twaddle

This is the biggest load of politicly biased twaddle I have heard the writer twisted history to fit his own views. Writes off the opinions and views of the views of others as not relavent or just plane wrong . The early parts of the book had a very slanted view of things but by the time he gets to the Industrial Revolution his views have moved to the right of Attila the Hun, the poverty of the poor was there own fault spending all there money on Drink and Tabaco . Charles Dickins and other writers reporting the parless state of the poor and working class were just story tellers who did not see any of what the wrote about or exagerated things on th grounds of Dickins novels of comedy.
Meany of the thing he quotes as facts are wrong as the reports of eye witnesses and even the reports to parliament in the period, I would love to see the writer picking ockam and subsisting on bowls of grewel and still as he dose throughout the book extoling how generus the poor law was. I quote " the poor law was the greatest act for the redistribution of wealth ever made "
I dont expict this review to ever see the light of day as I suspect my views will look to left wing to get an airing but it is not just the bias but the fact the writer can't even get the inventions of the industrial revolution in to a correct order

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Pretty Good

When Tombs writes that this book is a brick in our history, he is not wrong. At 45.5 hours long, it is a heck of a read.

I actually really enjoyed it. Parts of it, like the bits about the Middle Ages and the post Second World War sections were a bit of a slog. The post WW2 section basically consisted of Thatcher, bits of Major, Blair and the Scottish Referendum, and it’s like... yeah, but that’s not everything? So parts could have stood to be a bit longer, a bit more in depth, though with the way the book was written, it flowed and it made sense.

I really was not a fan of the narrator. I liked him for parts of this book, because he had quite a nice speaking method and he was enjoyable to listen to, but he lisped on words ending with s, and I never realised how many words ended with that letter until it was 45.5 hours of semi-hell. I had to speed the book up to 2x and 2.5x at time to overcome this.

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    3 out of 5 stars

A country that's never done anything wrong...

It's a huge audio book, and the narration is good. The story left me with mixed feelings. As an Englishman, I was superficially reassured that my country had just blundered through history trying to do the right thing. My predecessors weren't really selfish, greedy and vicious on the world stage. The leadership wasn't particularly elitist, racist or wasteful of human life.

And it's this that bothers me. There is a pattern that emerges through this book which seems to be as follows-
1. Explain the history using the traditional narrative.
2. Mention that in recent times people have criticised or challenged the narrative.
3. Selectively choose some facts or explain "if we didn't do it, someone else would have."

So what it boiled down to was a narrative that presumably is comfortable for nationalists. I'm sure Tombs will be put up for a knighthood or suchlike for this - a narrative that is safe, dismissive of dissent and very friendly to the established order. I can't think of an instance in the book where he offered some serious challenge to the status quo.

So if you want a run through of the history of England, this is ok, but I suspect you'll probably get a bit fed up with Tombs' 3-point plan as described above.

Overall - it's a classic example of what you get if you let nationalists/traditionalists write their own history. Overemphasising the positives and downplaying or dismissing the negatives.

I'm sure this book will become de rigeur for Tory anglophiles for many years. And if that's what you're after, then go for it - I'm sure you'd enjoy it. For anyone who's a bit more skeptical about the official version, the first half is better than the second. It's ok, but gets tiresome once you know the pattern.

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21 people found this helpful