Book Review: 1066 and All That

1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England Comprising All the Parts You Can Remember including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings & 2 Genuine Dates by W.C. Sellar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I rounded out my year by finally completing this unique book. I found it years ago when I was studying history in England and I started reading it in little chunks. But it's so funny that I just kept rereading portions whenever I'd pick it up and I never got around to finishing it, thus making me a Bad Reader, but a Good Person, or perhaps a Bad Person but a Good Reader. I think the authors would agree.

I've never read anything like it.

It's not a history in the traditional sense. You actually have to be a bit familiar with the history of England to get all the inside jokes. If you aren't, you can still read it, but it will be even more nonsensical than it is for those who know what the jokes refer to. Very early on you get the sense that this was written out of both a love of history and frustration with the way it is taught. I'll give a quick example that anyone who has ever had the misfortune to live through an insufferable Latin class on pronunciation will understand:

"Julius Caesar ...set the memorable sentence, 'Veni, Vidi, Vici,' which the Romans, who were all very well educated, construed correctly.

The Britons, however, who of course still used the old pronunciation, understanding him to have called them 'Weeny, Weedy and Weaky,' lost heart and gave up the struggle, thinking that he had already divided them All into Three Parts."

Essentially this book makes fun of history and all the historical figures of England that it claims are memorable (non-memorable figures are forgotten and thus not history, of course. This is a Good Thing). It has a humourous way of boiling history down to a single sentence and moralizing it. A great example being that it describes the "Industrial Revelation" as the moment when all the rich men in England discovered at the same time that women and children could work 25 hours a day and not that many of them died and were horribly disfigured. It's irreverent, it's funny, and it's concise. History is only the parts you can remember. And if you remember them wrong, you're still right of course. This has always been a Good Thing, and still is.

I'll give a quick excerpt of one later bit of the book so you have an idea what sort of history it really is:

" 'Let Sleeping Dogs Lie' (Walpole)

Walpole ought never to be confused with Walpole, who was quite different; it was Walpole who lived in a house with the unusual name of Strawberry Jam and spent his time writing letters to famous men (such as the Prime Minister, Walpole, etc.). Walpole is memorable for inventing the new policy of letting dogs go to sleep.

This was a Good Thing really, but it so enraged the people (who thought that a dog's life should be more uncomfortable) that they rang all the bells in London. At first Walpole merely muttered his policy, but eventually he was compelled to rouse himself and become actively memorable by remarking: `They are ringing the bells now; I shall be wringing their necks soon.' "

It's a marvelous book. It's particularly unique and won't be to everyone's taste, but I loved it. I loved it precisely because it's so amusing, unique, and entirely full of madness.

Ok, one more quote because I can't help myself:

"Wave of Egg-Kings

Soon after this event Egg-Kings were found on the thrones of all these kingdoms, such as Eggberd, Eggbreth, Eggfroth, etc. None of them, however, succeeded in becoming memorable except in so far as it is difficult to forget such names as Eggbirth, Eggbred, Eggbeard, Eggfish, etc. Nor is it even remembered by what kind of Eggdeath they perished."

How can you resist a book such as this?

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