This Sceptred Isle (This Sceptred Isle, 1)

click here for more details, find new or used items	Christopher Lee New from £12.39 Used from £0.50 Pages: 616 (Hardcover) ISBN: 0563383844 Pub: BBC Books Pub date: 1997-11-06 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 190493

Reader Reviews:

A delightful easy read. (8/8 people found this helpful)

I have various volumes of British/English history. This one is one of my favourites. Many history books contain a great deal of padding - wordy prose and multiple footnotes - which you have to wade through to stay with the story. This one is different. It manages to pick out all the important people and events and weave them into a fast-moving coherent story. The quotations from Winston Churchill's books add a further dimension - personally I like his writing style and now I will buy his 'History of the English Speaking peoples (Hint Hint - I am buying the one-volume abridgement from you - what about making the four-volume original set available?). Highly recommended. Having read the book, I bought the tapes. Frankly, I find these a disappointment - far too formal. Not recommended.

English history made easy (5/5 people found this helpful)

Not for History scholars but a must for anyone who just wants an overview of English/British history. It is more or less a transcript from the original radio show and therefore it reads like fiction and is a much easier read for the casual fan of history. Well worth the money!

Buy the tapes instead (3/3 people found this helpful)

This Sceptred Isle is something of a disapointment. It is adapted from a radio series on BBC radio four, which may not be the best way to write a book as it always feels like you are reading a script. The book skips over a lot of detail in its attempts to be concise, but this makes it very difficult to follow. For example the entire history of these islands fron the beginning to the end of the Roman occupation takes six pages and the Battle of Hastings in as many paragraphs. The book also quotes heavily from Winston Churchill's "History Of The English Speaking Peoples", which is both wordy and old fashioned. Frankly if I wanted to read Winston's words I would have purchased his book! If you already know your English history and it's many players then you may get more from this publication, but if you already know it why read this?

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