A History of the English-Speaking Peoples {abridged: Commager}

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I did not love reading Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples, although I don’t know whose fault that is: Churchill’s or the abridger’s. I do know I’m glad I didn’t attempt the 2000 page version; 470 pages of Churchill’s assessment of military strategies and medieval politics from 1939’s perspective was enough.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad I read it. However, I wouldn’t call Churchill’s tome a scholarly history. Even after finishing, I’m still not all that comfortable with English history.

In places it simply felt like stories and traditions from the history, told in an interesting way and with plenty of opinion. There were few footnotes. Churchill’s writing is detailed, informative, and overarching (Churchill made connections between kings, patterns, and eras). But I felt academic heft was missing. Despite that, I still got rather bogged down in the explanation of military strategies: I don’t care to know the details of each battle, but rather the outcomes and the effects of the battles (and this book had an extensive section on the American Civil War). I did really enjoy the first half of the book, which was about the settlement of England and the kings of England.

In the end, Churchill certainly has an interesting political perspective. But this wasn’t the best for a first look at English history.

More thoughts on my blog

In the time period, one of the finest books on the history of Europe and its colonies; Churchill has a tremendous vocabulary that he puts in play in this book. Wonderful secondary source for world history teachers. ( )