Christopher Lee (1)Besprekingen

A fast-moving, almost breezy journey through the twenty viceroys (the British Crown representative) in India from 1858 to 1947. While it provides a convenient summary of this period, I must say there is something disconcerting about the construction of many of the sentences, that may be due to a colloquial use of English, or to careless editing. It makes the reading of it rather taxing, which probably accounts for the inordinately long time spent on it. The author has some strong views on the persons involved, sometimes self-contradictory within the same paragraph or page, leaving the reader puzzled. Useful as a framework, but would have to be supplemented by more sober, more 'standard' biographies and historical accounts.

This is a fast fun way to brush up on your English history, starts off with the Romans, then how the "English" invaded and finishes with William the Conqueror, I'll be getting the next series soon to continue my English history education.

Lee has chosen to take 1603 as a great turning point in British history, akin to 1066. There is no argument that the death of Elizabeth I and the accession of James I and VI, bringing England and Scotland under one monarch, did entail a change for Great Britain - most obviously civil war and eventual unification.
Although Lee has written an interesting book, it is a little choppy in places, and 1603 doesn't seem to provide enough material in itself, there being no great focus, such as the battle of Hastings is for 1066.
There are plenty of extracts from original documents included. It is very interesting to see these in the original English they were written in, although the number of extracts does at times make it heavy going and perhaps not for the casual reader.

This is a deeply disappointing book. The title is misleading, and the execution of the theme is quite sloppily done. Dealing with it in reverse order, I presume that Dr. Lee, is a fairly skilled lecturer, and has had his lecture notes cited edited for references, and spell checked. But he has not checked the text for a problem arising from being a better speaker than writer. Lee often has allowed sentences or rather, non-sentences to creep into his text, severely hampering his information flow. An example: "Mountbatten the man to do it." Lee has a weakness, omitting the verb "to be" in a written sentence. It is highly effective in speaking but not in written speech. An adequate editor would have helped him correct this, I hope. Into the bargain he does not use the semicolon; a punctuation mark that links two ideas in equal partnership in a sentence, rather than the word "And". What Lee relies on is the verbal trick of emphasis, but it requires the sentence to be read aloud rather than silently, usually several times,slowing down the flow. I raise these points as I also suffer from them, and I feel his temptations, and his pain.
The work starts with a potted history of "India before the Mutiny,' from the British point of view. It is readable, and definitely a recap rather than an account, for there' s often a frustrating lack of detail. This lack of detail persists in the descriptions of the Viceroys, who are all linked to their educational backgrounds but often not linked to their accomplishments. While they are linked to their social roles in the government of India, one is often left at loose ends as to how they actually worked, and what demands were made on them by their office. As a tool in discovering how India was moved from a medieval plundering empire to a modern parliamentary state by the British run period...the book disappoints. I would however give Mr. Lee credit for his work in two areas: his essay on the history of Jinnah, usually portrayed as a simple Islamic villain in the partition controversy, and Lee's essay on the Wavell/Mountbatten windup of the whole show. These two, at least, are useful to the student.½

BBC audio by Juliet Stevenson is (probably) assembled radio segments. Each 15-minute segment is introduced by rather jarring piano music and a male voice announcing the section number.

Fascinating year by year précis of British history in the twentieth century. Concentrating on politics with a nod to popular culture. How the country has lurched from one crisis to another. And survived.

Everything that happened in 1603 in Britain . Plague, piracy, Queen Elizabeth I’s death, James I’s ascension to the throne, and a whole mess of historical documents. It’s a hard slog through the whole book, but the sheer amount of first-person sources is worth it. If you’re in the mood to read pages of Elizabethan clerks’ meticulous records, this is the book for you.

This history of Britain opens in the year 77,000 BC. Events from 1901 onwards are more or less summarised. After all, there are many accounts of the two world wars and of the twentieth century in general.

I was most interested in the English origins up to the late 1500s, as from 1600 onwards the author focuses more and more on all things political, as well as on colonialism, and neither topic appeals to me. Had that not been the case I would have awarded this tome 4 or maybe even 5 stars, as Lee's writing is good, and his account of per-seventeenth century Britain is very engaging.

If, however, you are interested in politics and colonialism then you'll probably enjoy this book on the whole. I'm just expressing personal taste and do not want to put the author down, as he has produced a through document of Britain's past with this heavy tome.

My only real criticism is the account of Henry VI's death. Although this Lancastrian monarch is rumoured to have been murdered either on Edward IV's or Richard III's orders, I've always been of the understanding that Henry died/was murdered in the Tower of London. According to the author of this book:

"Edward IV then returned to London, dragged out the hapless King Henry VI and beheaded him."

Henry VI was beheaded? This is news to me. If anyone can confirm that Lee's got it right and all other sources are wrong, please let me know.

Apart from the above point, Lee has detailed some interesting and fascinating events from English history.

See my positive review of Lee's Sceptred Isle: Dynasties.

See my positive review of Lee's Sceptered Isle: Dynasties.

Bought to accompany the absolutely excellent BBC Radio 4 CD Collection: The History of Britain - - broadcast in 1999 to commemorate the passing of the First Millennium: Imaginatively scripted by Christopher Lee and impeccably narrated by Anna Massey. Thoroughly commend the CD Collection and the 3 books also by Lee that add much useful information on the vast array of topics covered in the radio progs.

I did not mean to read this book just yet – I am working through one of Simon Schama’s tomes – but I opened it to see if I would like the author’s “voice”. The following afternoon I finished and shelved the book.

Within just a few paragraphs I was excitedly telling my wife, “This book is my story too! I could have written it myself”. Well, perhaps, but not as well as Christopher Lee. As his story developed it drew away from my own similar experience, in the same time and on the same shores and seas. Lee had just the one trip – abruptly terminated in a Singapore hospital with acute appendicitis. He was flown home, and went to University, launching a new ‘trip’ as a career journalist and becoming the foreign affairs correspondent for the BBC. My own sea-going continued a further seven years, as Christopher Lee became a history professor and author.

This story is the authors description of his fist, and it was to transpire, only, trip on ”deep sea” articles aboard a ‘Tramp’ – one of that once huge fleet of wandering traders whose time was fast approaching an end, with giant ‘Container’ ships already looming above the blue horizons. It is built around his scribbled notes in school text-books, his memories and crafted with creative humour.

As a Kentish lad Lee worked the Thames barges around the estuaries and coastal towns in which we both grew up … Whitstable, Sheerness and up to the London docks. He joins the Merchant Navy to go ‘deep sea’ and in joining his first ship, he describes crossing the Thames to the docks on a ferry filled with early morning Stevedores. On reading this I recalled those dreich morning crossings with those darkly flat-capped Dockies with their wet ‘Old Holbourn’ fag ends, hacking out the smokers early-morning chorus of hawks and gasps! His words vividly brought back the weight and roughness of a kit-bag on the shoulder, and the excited but dreading anticipation of both ship and trip.
The author crafts a great tale, deeply involves the reader from the first page and leaves a void when the book is closed.

Even if you never hankered to run away to sea you should enjoy this well told tale of ocean wandering and, of course, of a young lad maturing.

a series of 90 short radio programmes about the history of the British Empire, narrated by Juliet Stevenson with additional voice work by Christopher Ecclestone, Anna Massey, Jack Davenport, and others, a sequel to the earlier This Sceptred Isle which dealt with the history of Britain in the same way.

I was a bit underwhelmed, to be honest. I suspect that the subject is too big to treat in this way; I had picked it up in the first place to listen to the bits about Ireland, which for the earlier period were fairly decent, but rather tailed off towards the end (Irish history apparently stopped in 1916), and the other ex-colonies I've dealt with professionally (Cyprus, Somaliland) were barely mentioned. The focus of the narrative was generally, though not always, on the effect that the colonies and colonised had on the British rather than the other way round. I was particularly frustrated by the sections about Warren Hastings, which lionised him as an innocent hero without making it terribly clear why he was anything more than a venal administrator set up by rivals in office politics who played hardball. Macaulay was much clearer (if more long-winded), but I missed really any Indian account of whether Hastings was any good.

There are also serious limitations to the straight narrative-with-actors style. Probably if I'd been listening to it at a rate of one instalment every day or so, rather than in bursts of several at a time, it might not have irritated me as much. But I've now started the more recent and excellent History Of The World In 100 Objects, and I'm stunned by how dull the format of Scepterd Isle is, in comparison. It would hardly have killed the producers to include, like, music, or even original sound tracks in the later period when they become available.

So, all in all, not really recommended listening.½

If you love British history, you'll love this! Very detailed, but very readable.

Very charming story. Adapted from author's own diary, written as an 18-year old apprentice on one of the last tramp steamers.

A mostly thematical look at the changes occuring in Britain around this time. I think I would have preferred it if adopted a slightly more chronological and journal-type approach going throughout the year, as I felt it bounced around a bit between rather unconnected topics. It was also a little dry in places, with sometimes overlong extracts from contemporary sources which could have benefited from being translated into slightly more modern English for ease of reading (this is history, not literature).½

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/13538171