A History of the English-Speaking Peoples
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples is a four-volume history of Britain and its former colonies and possessions throughout the world, written by Winston Churchill, covering the period from Caesar's invasions of Britain to the end of the Second Boer War (1902). It was started in 1937 and finally published 1956–1958, delayed several times by war and his work on other texts. The volumes have been abridged into a single-volume, concise edition.
Stats for nerds
2recommend
7mentions
7people
2013–2024years
29% recommend43% neutral29% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Churchill's autobiography [0] is actually a great read. I'm nowhere near qualified to judge a literature Nobel prize but I loved it. His history of the English speaking peoples is pretty good too.
- Two other great history reads are -
1. The Great Game - by Peter Hopkirk 2. A History of the English-Speaking Peoples - by Winston Churchill
- I kinda like this but e.g are research papers fact or fiction?
How about an economics textbook, or an article in the economist? "A history of the english speaking peoples" by Winston Churchill?
If we restrict to "ground truth we feel very sure about" it feels like available training data might be quite small.
- I bought that book years ago, it was so stupid. It was like a naive teenager’s uninformed screed about how international trade, development and finance are intrinsically bad. I didn’t know about the fabulistic aspects of it, but that’s not surprising in the slightest.
Come to think of it, I think I still have it on a bookshelf somewhere. I should banish it to the same place I banish books that I’ve read because they seem interesting but are just right/wing agitprop (e.g., books that come to mind in this category were books about the over-expansion of the federal criminal code, the East German stasi and the dysfunctionality of San Francisco - I’m happy to have my perspective changed, but I don’t find that I’m very receptive to arguments that boil down to “your beliefs are stupid and that’s why these things are bad”).
Another notably stupid book that I bought was called “A History of the English Speaking Peoples” - I (foolishly) thought it was going to be about the remarkably resilient political systems and economies of US/UK/Can./Aus./NZ but it was basically a white supremacist tract. No thanks.
- The atrocities are remembered in Ireland as atrocities all the same.
> James Joyce wrote in Ulysses, 1922, “What about sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides that put the women and children of Drogheda to the sword with the bible text God is love pasted round the mouth of his cannon?”
> Winston Churchill’s view in The History of the English Speaking Peoples: The Age of Revolution, 1957, is perhaps less artful, but succinct: “By an uncompleted process of terror, by an iniquitous land settlement, by the virtual proscription of the Catholic religion, by the bloody deeds already described, he cut new gulfs between the nations and the creeds…. Upon all of us there still lies ‘the curse of Cromwell.’ ”
Quotes propagated from https://simanaitissays.com/2018/11/28/oliver-cromwell-purita...
- It doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's tradition :) This kind of objection is like pointing out that the Royal family are German in origin and Prince Philip is an immigrant by marriage; it's true, but not in any way relevant to the kind of people who regard the monarchy as important.
All nations have a chunk of mythos holding them together. Brexit seems to be popular among people who think that Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples is good history.
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