Eventual Gander: British History for Dummies

[Review of British History for Dummies by Sean Lang]

There are times in history when one ought to be a fan of a certain publishing house. Scribner's Sons in the 20's. City Lights in the 50's. And now, For Dummies. Now, I'm sure that the For Dummies series prompts scorn and derision for some of their titles. I can only hope that Computers for Dummies reads something like this: "This is a mouse. You use it to do the obvious thing on your computer. When it breaks, you should do anything other than call your 'smart grandson' who does, in fact, have something better to do than help you digitize your photos of cats in front of a background of animated cats trying to hump other still life cats." I might be worried about my grandma taking offense at the previous sentence if not for the content of the previous sentence.

But the For Dummies books on Humanities and Social Sciences are awesome. The actual dummies, the ones who learn things just for grades, flock to Cliffs Notes. This brand, that in the technical realm caters to liberal arts majors on a deadline ("Our co-op newsletter needs to be out by Tuesday and it's not getting there 'til you learn Adobe Illustrator!"), caters, in the humanities realm, to liberal arts majors looking to have more info to masturbate out in casual cocktail party conversation. And so they find wholly competent authors who have a nice, cheeky sense of humor to write it. All the while giving you the facts without the pesky parts of textbooks. Y'know, the quizzes, the forced diversity ("minorities were important too during this period; check out this sidebar that shows a woman/black/poor person who had an interesting life story that is a sidebar because it doesn't fit in to the main story"), the repetition for students skimming a chapter introduction 3 minutes before class.

This is a textbook for people who want to learn, and want to have fun learning. Textbooks use a style that is dry, droll, and drab to make information easy to convey. Instead of dumbing down the words, Lang makes his style more interesting so you read closer. Consider the following chapter/section titles: "1066 and All That Followed", "Children of the Revolutions", "And What Have the Romans Ever Given Us in Return?", "Saxon, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll", "Who wants to be a William heir?", "Going Dutch", "Marlborough country", "Trouble Over: Brdiged Water", "The Battle of Warren Hastings". These are references to, somewhat respectively, an earlier satire of British History, Song Titles, Monty Python, awesome things, game shows, a good way to be told it's alright but you won't get laid, smoking, and historical occurrences themselves. I'm sure I've omitted several altogether awesome ones. And that made me pay closer attention. And that made me learn more.

The writing's funny, sure. In a wry, British manner, instructive itself. (In one passage about the revolts over Poll Tax, the writer notes that the disembodied head the peasants took was surely displayed on a vertical piece of wood using pole tacks). But all the cultural references make this book more admittedly a product of its own time than most are willing to admit. And it's short, a survey course, which means you get blasted with a lot, quickly. This is not a book to read a chapter or two of. If you want that, go to wikipedia. This is a book to read all of in one relatively fell swoop, so that you make connections you might miss if you read about single events. For instance, I had never quite realized that the Prince John who was the snivelling bastard in Robin Hood stories became the King John who, as a snivelling king, was forced by his barons to issue the Magna Carta. Let me know what connections you make.

Don't read this book because I recommend it. That perverts the purpose of this book. It is a book to be read only because you don't have to. The author made this book good; intent and intent alone can make it enjoyable.