It's given me a really good summary of Britain's history. ( )

It's given me a really good summary of Britain's history. ( )

An interesting book looking at the selection of places that have made, or been part of the history of England. ( )

This is the history of England for the Wikipedia generation. Short, sharp snippets of history, a lot of which most of my generation would be vaguely aware of from school history lessons. It scored points for reminding me of things I should know more about, but lost them for some very tenuous links, particularly in the chapters covering the more modern era. As, I suspect, with all books of this type, the older the history, the more safe the choices; I saw little of merit in the 20th century chapters, and no doubt a different author would choose different subjects.

Overall, this wasn't what I expected it to be and as such was disappointing. ( )

Apparently loose vignettes provide a delightful sweep of English history. Norwich is getting on a bit, and isn't writing any large-scope histories anymore (like his works on Byzantium or Venice). But these 100 places end up giving a full history of England, whereby the geographical location of each chapter is only a starting point for broader considerations, occasional humour and moral admonishments from a well-read, kind and super-intelligent uncle. ( )