Foundation – The History of England from its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors

 

Foundation – The History of England from its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors – by Peter Ackroyd

Volume one of a six volume set.  If the other volumes are as strong as this one, I would highly recommend the entire series.  A history geek like me, in fact, wishes such a series were available for every country in the history of civilization.  Of course, I would also need about 100 extra years to read them all.  Ahhhh…one certainly can imagine and fantasize.

Technically, this book covers thousands and thousands of years of history, but like most retrospectives, we zoom through the earliest periods rather quickly since so little is known.  Still though, this is an awful lot of history to pack into one book. An arduous task, but author Peter Ackroyd succeeds magnificently. I was a bit surprised that some events of England’s history were only briefly skimmed – such as the Viking invasions during in the 10^th century – yet I’m sure this was the author’s intent since he couldn’t go too crazy.  Even a six-volume set demands a bit of brevity.  So if you’re wanting an in depth volume of any point in the history of England pre 1500, you might be a tad disappointed with what is here.

This book isn’t entirely ‘history’ either. Ackroyd alternates each ‘history’ chapter with a chapter on the different aspects of life during the periods; whether diet, the town layouts, fashions, education, pets, leisure, etc.  These diversions were well researched and informative, yet I think I would have preferred straight history. Fortunately (for me) these alternate chapters were very brief; maybe 3-5 pages.  I must confess, though, that even though I loved this book (especially the history), if one were to ‘test’ me on the facts that were covered in this compendium, I would have easily failed.  In other words, there wasn’t much of this book that stayed with me once I finished reading.  I’ll try to explain…

Once the history of this book gets to William the Conqueror during the 11^th century, the book slows down a bit and breathes (a good thing).  Yet the history of England is awfully repetitive. This isn’t the author’s fault.  He even states such sentiments several times throughout.  We learn, for example, that in order for a king to be “successful”, he can’t be loving, kind, altruistic and diplomatic.  Instead, he must conquer, destroy, and constantly wage war against neighboring countries.  So yes, there’s a lot of that. An awful lot.  It seems that every king’s reign was highlighted by a war with France, Scotland, or some other neighboring province.  Of course, wars cost money, so taxes are always being imposed on the peasants who are pretty destitute even without such financial constraints.  So, no, life was never pretty in ‘merry old England’.

We then come to the fact that, for whatever reason, people weren’t quite as creative when naming their offspring.  So this book features several Edwards, Henrys, and Roberts.  Every female seems to be named Elizabeth, Margaret, or Anne.  I also lost track of how many kings of France that were named ‘Charles’.  So if you were to now ask me on a test to differentiate Henry II from Henry VI, I would easily fail.  In spite of the repetition, however, I found all of the history incredibly captivating. Because so much history is covered, each dynasty only warrants about 25 pages or so.  I confess if I were to read an entire biography of one of these monarchs, I might have let my attention wander somewhat. Brief chapters can prevent such diversions of interest.

I also couldn’t keep track of all the relations and rival factions.  There were an awful lot of cousins, nephews, earls, dukes and many of these individuals seemed to always be attempting to usurp the throne. I simply couldn’t keep track.  One criticism of this book is that it could have greatly benefitted with a diagram of a family tree.  A map of England and France would have been very helpful as well.   I must again say, though, that these gripes I’m listing are minor, and I still really loved the book (volume 2 is currently on order from Amazon).

So if you read this book, go slow.  Take notes.  Illustrations are included, but these are crude drawings and paintings consistent with the time period. You may want to imagine what each leader looks like and make mental pictures ensuring you have them all looking somewhat different. This will help keep, for example, all 8 ‘Henrys’ somewhat straight in your mind. 

There’s so much more I wanted to explore after reading this book.  I wanted to learn more about Joan of Arc, the Magna Carta, and was even briefly tempted to read all of Shakespeare’s histories that dealt with the many monarchs.  Briefly.    If you love history, this is a great starting place to tackle the long history of England. Very very thorough, but not morosely overbearing.

The Secrets She Keeps

 

The Secrets She Keeps – by Michael Robotham

A new author for me, and based on one book, a pretty darn good one. We plow right into the story.  We meet Agatha. We’re told she’s having a baby and works as a stocker in a grocery store. Based on what we’re told, she seems pretty far along. That can never be a good thing if one is working as a stocker and is ‘very’ pregnant.  Of course we also learn that her personal life isn’t ideal. Her “boyfriend” is in the royal navy, hasn’t communicated with her in over 8 months and, therefore, doesn’t know about the pregnancy. One gets the impression he doesn’t want to come back to her regardless.

As Agatha works in the grocery store, she has made it a habit to look out the window and visually stalk another very pregnant woman who frequents the village shops across the street. This woman is named Meg. Meg seems to have everything that Agatha does not. Meg has money, a stable family, nice friends, and she already has two adorable children.  Agatha envies Meg.  Just because one envies another, however, doesn’t mean one should stalk them. Agatha is quite obsessed. We learn that her snooping is much more involved than staring at her out the store window while she meets for coffee with her well-off friends.

So we then get to meet Meg. Her life isn’t quite as rosy as Agatha imagines.  Just because one has money and an attractive family doesn’t always equate happiness.  Meg’s husband Jack, who is some sort of tv personality, comes across as a rather officious jerk.  PSA – When your wife is pregnant, you never ever call her ‘fat’.  In fact, don’t call her ‘fat’ when she’s not pregnant either.

Each chapter in this story alternates between Agatha and Meg. The chapters are told in first-person narrative. Their brief and never boring.  They can be sad, though.  After Agatha stalks Meg for quite a while, she then arranges an “accidental” meeting.  Agatha really wants to meet and get to know Meg better.

At this point I need to stop describing the plot as I don’t want to spoil anything.  In fact, if my review has piqued your interest, I would ask that you don’t read any other reviews.  Just pick this one up and start reading. The problem with a lot of book and movie reviews is they tell you way too much of the plot before you begin the story, so you know what’s going to happen way before the incident happens in the narrative. (I never saw the Tom Hanks movie ‘Castaway’, but I remember that the theatrical previews told the viewer that he does, in fact, get rescued off this island at some point.  Seriously? During the PREVIEW?  What gives ????) 

Let’s just say that this book is intense. It’s a page turner. It’s a great thriller.  There were times when it was hard for me to read some of the latter chapters word for word because I kept wanting to look away; similar to when you watch an intense scene in a movie. You WANT to see what happens next, but your heart is pounding rather quickly, and you nervously sit on the edge of the seat wanting to shield your eyes because of what might be coming.  This book is like that.  That’s a good thing.

I’ve heard that this author is famous for his “thrillers” and this book was somewhat of a diversion for him in terms of style. I dunno. I thought this thing was pretty darn thrilling.  You wouldn’t think a book about two women expecting a child could be described as such, but trust me, this thing is intense.

Looking forward to reading more by this author.

Embracing Defeat

 

Embracing Defeat – by John W. Dower

This was not an enjoyable book for me.  For the majority of the time, I didn’t feel like I was reading a book that was designed to keep a reader interested.  This book reminded me of a boring Sociology course that you accidentally signed up for in college.  A course you probably dropped before the term was over because the only thing the professor did well was cure your insomnia.  This book was simply too deep in the weeds for my enjoyment.  If someone, say, bought a new Apple watch and you asked them to show you the features, you’d probably be more interested in what the watch does as opposed to the chips and whistles in the interior that make the thing work.

In most cases, when I (finally) arrived at a new chapter, my interest would last for maybe two pages and then I quickly became bored.  I had to skim too much of this book. My finger almost became sore since I swiped the pages on my e-reader so  quickly.  I simply couldn’t give the majority of this book my full attention. It’s quite a shame because I imagine that if this book had been written differently, I would have been highly interested since the subject matter greatly interests me. The story of Japan post World War II is quite a fascinating tale.

Although not everyone agrees, the fact that Japan refused to surrender after they were obviously defeated in the second world war is what caused Harry Truman to drop not one but two atomic bombs.  This finally brought the once proud nation of Japan to their knees.  Enter Douglas MacArthur who “ruled” the nation for the next six or seven years.  It’s one of the great stories of the United States of America when we read how magnanimous the leader was towards its defeated adversary who treated the American POWs with unthinkable cruelty during the fighting.

So rather than subjugate the losers to lifelong slavery, the U.S. government and MacArthur proceed to aid the country in its rebuilding efforts.  This was not an easy task since Japan was forced to adopt many customs and ideas that were totally alien to their way of thinking.  It’s this fact that led me to want to read this book, as such a tale of struggle, rebirth, and eventual prosperity would be a fascinating story.  Sadly, though, this simply wasn’t the case.

Dower talks too much about the intricacies and psychologies of the people and their government. This just didn’t do it for me.  There’s an awful lot of instances where he’ll spend an abnormally heavy amount of time discussing artists, poets, and writers and their “reflections” of the times.  Digging deep into poets’ souls doesn’t make interesting reading for me.  I was wanting facts, not deep hard-to-understand emotions.

For better or worse, the book essentially ends after Doug MacArthur leaves (in the middle of Korea and his sacking by Truman) in 1952. The author includes an epilogue where he briefly touches on the nation after that event, but I feel much more was warranted.  Again, that may have not been his intention.  I wish this book had been much more nuts and bolts and not so much flim-flam.