A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume 2: 75% Complete

Yes, I am woefully overdue for an update.  The truth is, I'm going to take a little sabbatical from the project for a couple of weeks.  Between working and school, I find I'm just too brain-dead at the end of the day to read anything with any weight.  The good news is, though, that I only have three weeks of school left.  My last final is on June 14th, so once that's past, I will resume work on this project. 

 

I have been doing some reading, however, just not books on the list.  I'm catching up on some newer, lighter reading books that I've wanted to read for some time.  In the past week and a half I've read: Wild by Cheryl Strayed (four out of five stars), Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin (five out of five), A Final Arc of Sky by Jennifer Culkin (four out of five), Once Upon a List by Robin Gold (two out of five) and The Girl She Used to Be by David Cristofano (three out of five).  Right now I'm working on Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday.

 

So I will bid you farewell for a couple of weeks, but rest assured, just like the Terminator, I will be back!

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, volume 2: 75% Complete

Many apologies, dear readers, for my prolonged absence.  As many of you have gathered, I am a full-time student, a hospital volunteer and a certified nursing assistant.  The past couple of weeks I have been working 40+ hours a week in addition to going to school and my volunteer shifts.  The nature of my work has been such that I've been able to do quite a bit of reading while I'm there, a luxury I am thoroughly appreciating, but I haven't had much time for blogging.

 

So I finished volume one and I'm most of the way done with volume two now as well and still loving it. 

 

I have a confession to make.  When I was reading on Kindle, I found it easy to look up words that I didn't know, but with a hard-copy book, I've been too lazy to do much of that, especially when I'm at work without a dictionary.  So I don't have a vocabulary word for you today.  But I do have a couple more quotes (I've been folding the corners of the pages over to mark them.  In a library book. *gasp* I promise I'll fold them back up before I return the book.  It's like the book version of "be kind, rewind."  But I digress...)

 

First of all, an example of Churchill's often-biting commentary:

 

"Indeed, no fact stands forth more unchallengeable than that the overwhelming majority of the nation was convinced that Richard [III] had used his power as Protector to usurp the crown and that the princes had disappeared in the Tower.  It will take many ingenious books to raise this issue to the dignity of a historical controversy."

 

And from volume two, an example of his poetic writing:

 

"The pamphlets  [of the Puritans in the 1500's] are loaded with coarse, effective adjectives, and the sentences lumber along like the hay-cart in which the press itself was at one time concealed."

 

And lastly, an example of the humorous bits that Churchill throws in without warning (maybe it wasn't supposed to be funny):

 

There is no surer way of rousing popular excitement than the holding of General Elections in quick succession.  Passions ran high; beer flowed."

 

Politics and beer.  Now that's a time-honored tradition.

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, volume I: 62% Complete

My apologies for going so long between updates.  I'm really enjoying A History of the English-Speaking Peoples.  Churchill's writing is funny, engaging and opinionated.  I do a lot of my reading in between classes at school and a couple of times, I have nearly laughed out loud while sitting in my classroom.

 

There haven't been many vocabulary words that I haven't known, but I do have one for you.  The word is "hypocaust" which is "a hollow space under the floor of an ancient Roman building, into which hot air was sent for heating a room or bath"  (definition from The New Oxford American Dictionary).  I was familiar with this concept, but I didn't know that word for it.

 

I have run across so many quotes which are entertaining or interesting or both, but I have to choose a few to share with you.

 

First, from the beginning of the book, as the Bronze Age gives way to the Iron Age:

 

"At this point the march of invention brought a new factor upon the scene.  Iron was dug and forged.  Men armed with iron entered Britain from the continent and killed the men of bronze.  At this point we can plainly recognize across the vanished millenniums a fellow-being.  A biped capable of slaying another with iron is evidently to modern eyes a man and a brother.  It cannot be doubted that for smashing skulls, whether long-headed or round, iron is best."

 

(On a side note, shouldn't the plural of millennium be millennia?  But who am I to correct Churchill...)

 

On the subject of King Arthur:

 

"And wherever men are fighting against barbarism, tyranny, and massacre, for freedom, law, and honour, let them remember that the fame of their deeds, even though they themselves be exterminated, may perhaps be celebrated as long as the world rolls round."

 

Could it be that perhaps Churchill saw himself as a second Arthur, if you will?

 

In the next quote he has just related a rather romantic (in the older sense of the word) story of a love triangle involving Henry II, his wife Eleanor, and a woman simply called "Fair Rosamond."

 

"Tiresome investigators have undermined this excellent tale, but it certainly should find its place in any history worthy of the name."

 

I love how Churchill, while writing a history book, puts the excellence of the tale above the "tiresome" factual history.  He seemed to be rolling his eyes in disgust at anyone who might suggest that this story didn't actually happen.

 

And lastly, not a quote, but an interesting tidbit.  I was, of course, familiar with the name Plantagenet, applied as a sort of surname to the kings and queens of England from Henry II to Richard III.  But apparently this name comes from the emblem of Henry II's house, the broom (plant, not cleaning instrument specifically), which in Latin is called the planta genesta, literally broom plant.

 

Before I close, I want to send out my sympathies to all those affected in the bombings in Boston and the plant explosion in Texas.  May you be embraced by peace and comfort.

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples: Beginning

The next book I'm going to tackle is A History of the English-Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill.  (N.B. On the cover of the book, there is no hyphen between "English" and "Speaking;" however, as there should be one and as it does appear on the title page, I will be putting it in.) For some reason there is no copy of this book for Kindle, as far as I can tell.  Fortunately, the Seattle Public Library has them so I am borrowing them from there, in hard copy. This gives me a chance to use the lovely bookmark my sister gave me for Christmas. (One of the few downsides to Kindle, I've found, is that you don't get to use bookmarks.) 

 

The book was originally written by Churchill (who was, of course, prime minister of the United Kingdom during and after World War II) in the 1930's.  It's publication was delayed by the war, however, and it was not published until the mid-1950's.  The book is four-volumes long (although there is an abridged, one-volume version available) and covers the history of Britain and it's former colonies from the invasion by Rome in 55 BC to the beginning of the first World War in 1914.

 

The book tends to focus mainly on military history and political movement, rather than social or economic history.  Another British prime minister, Clement Attlee, suggested that the book should have been titled, "Things in History that Interest Me."  Nevertheless, the book has endured the test of time for it's judgment of war and politics and for Churchill's lively writing style.  It was one of the books mentioned when Churchill won his Nobel Prize for Literature.

 

This is a book I've been interested in reading for a long time but have put off because of it's length, but I'm excited to begin.  Because I will be reading each volume separately, and because I don't know the page lengths of all the volumes, I will report my progress through each volume as a percentage of that volume's total length, not a percentage of the whole book.