Lacey Baldwin Smith (1922–2013)

What a witty and impressive book. The idea of distilling English history into one, small entertaining volume is genius, and Smith delivers everything she promises. My favorite part of her style is the ability to condense huge concepts into single, powerful sentences.

Her astute analysis of Britain's gradual fall from supremecy in Victorian and Georgian times was, for me, rather thought provoking, and her analysis of the years after WW2 even moreso.

The last quarter of the book is a section show more she aptly labels The Royal Soap Opera. In it she recounts the finny, morbid, creepy, and at times unbelievable events of each monarch's reign.

Whether you are a committed Anglophile or just looking for an entertaining read, this book delivers in spades. show less

Truly awful. I really hope this was ghost written, or at least the 'fiction' parts were.

It was supposed to be a historical novel looking at another possible interpretation of the whole Anne Boleyn fiasco. What actually happened was half the book being dry, boring, not even relevant historical details (e.g. lists of exact costs of items) presented as jarringly out of place thoughts by the main characters, then the other half consisting of the most godawful sex scenes I've ever read.

Speaking show more of the sex scenes, it was ok and possible meant to be sexy(?) in this book that a woman was so attractive men couldn't be resist raping her. Also, the entire book was written through the eyes of the male characters only, with Anne Boleyn and every other woman mentioned (except Katherine of Aragon and Princess Mary) portrayed as evil seductive whores. Those poor helpless men... Bonus: Jane Parker was an actual witch.

Poorly proofread as well, there were typos galore, and people and place names were often wrong.

In short, just don't bother. show less

This book is none of the things said on the tin: brief, irreverent, or pleasurable. It was incoherent, and fell into the horrible default state of crappy history books: a long Biblical-style list of undifferentiated kings with minor facts about them, vs. illustrating actual long-term trends using the individual examples. By far the worst part was the last 20% which was essentially a summary of the monarchs of England.

The good or interesting part was a summary of politics in the immediate show more post-WW2 period (Labor, then Conservative; rationing, and then the 70s...), but this book failed to do a good job of that, either.

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Wonderful book. Smith offers incredible insights. I do wish she had gone as deep/gotten as detailed as she did with Henry.