Thoroughy enjoyable way to find out how so much of life's preconceptions are mistaken and how cognitive dissonance and the Dunning-Kruger affect lead us astray. History books are usually informative, occasionally exciting but rarely funny. "Fake History" is all three - often it's laugh out loud funny, as my fellow passengers on the Aberystwyth to Birmingham train discovered yesterday. This is history written as it should be; researched, clear and - as mentioned - bloody hilarious in places. Otto English obviously put a lot of research into writing Fake History: Ten Great Lies and How They Shaped the World, and it shows. At first it seems like a lot of the information might be tangential, but English manages to bring all the threads together to paint a very clear picture. While not everything is quite as revelatory as the title might suggest, there were certain lies that I believed that it was fascinating to learn were not exactly as I had been told.

This is a mixed bag that deconstructs "great lies" of history and attempts, with varying degrees of success, to find parallels with the current political reality. The brilliant chapters on the hyper-mythologised version of Winston Churchill and weaponising of WWI/WWII memory in modern Britain will resonate with any Brit who has had the misfortune to question Churchill's legacy or, heaven forbid, neglected to wear a paper flower. I even liked the chapter on the dubious origins of "curry." Sandbrook, Dominic (27 May 2021). "How the culture wars came for history". UnHerd . Retrieved 27 December 2021. This book has the grammar of a well written text. No references were to be found and the content strayed wildly from what the chapter titles were. I felt like I was just reading someone’s opinion piece the whole time, I know that’s what all history books are, but if you don’t reference things how do I know that what you’re saying is correct and the history you’re calling fake isn’t. We are told that Kathleen Scott and Nansen were lovers, and that their affair was consumated in a Berlin hotel, there is absolutely no reliable evidence for this whatsoever, and it appears to have been invented by Huntford. They may have been friends, and Nansen may have had a crush on her, but hey, Kathleen was a vivacious and sociable lady, she had a lot of pals, it doesn't mean she was banging all of them, GOSH! Also I think this may have been one of the things Huntford had to pay the Scott family damages over, because it's not truuuueeeee 🤠

Nem mondom, hogy a fenti metódus olyasvalami, amit én sose követtem el, mert de. Ugyanakkor megiscsak jó lenne hinni, hogy ennél többre vagyunk hivatva. Mert végtére is nem az a gond, hogy mások mást gondolnak, mint mi - hisz az ember sokféle. Hanem hogy hajlandóak-e ezek mellett a gondolatok mellett úgy érvelni, hogy a másikat is embernek tekintik. Mégpedig olyan embernek, akiről feltételezik, hogy respektálható céljai és motivációi lehetnek. Jó, hát igaz, ami igaz, ez a fajta hozzáállás meglehetősen energiaigényes, néha meddő is**. De az semmiképpen sem jó módszer, ha a másik oldal leegyszerűsítő populizmusára válaszul mi meg megteremtjük annak tükörképét: a mi leegyszerűsítő populizmusunkat. For a better overview of Scott and of what went wrong on the Terra Nova expedition, I'd suggest A First Rate Tragedy by Diana Preston and The Coldest March by Susan Solomon (whose research on the Ozone layer is mentioned in a later chapter of this very book!). Debunking the myth of well known heroes takes courage. I found the JFK story interesting, the Mother Theresa one somewhat trivial. I like the way he critises the British mentality. As I think Andy Warhol is not much of a hero, I don't quite give a damn. As regards Che' story I think he is too harsh.

Russian Interference Byline Times leads the way in exposing the anti-democratic influence of the Kremlin over the affairs of other nations This biography of a living person relies too much on references to primary sources. Please help by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful.

Cronyism and Corruption Byline Times uncovers the nepotism that greases the wheels of British politics. Hard to convey how truly appalling this book is. One thing it isn't is a history book. It's a rambling disjointed collection of hobby-horse baseless opinions. The episode on 'Hilter wasn't a failed artist', is prime territory. The author even lets slip that Hilter was a failed artist, (after all he was twice rejected from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts!), but he still carries on trying to undermine this historical fact. As though this fact would in some unfathomable way lead us to humanize the monster. The author then goes on to tell us that Mein Kampf is not a good book. Well thanks for that, without you we would have all thought it was wonderful. The author's problem with Andy Warhol is somewhat unclear. I mean, we know that many of Warhol's works weren't actually physically produced by Warhol himself, so this is not really new information. There was never any sense in which Andy Warhol tried to claim otherwise, as his entire artistic life was about blurring the boundaries between consumerism and art. Nevertheless, Otto English doesn't like Warhol at all, which is understandable in some ways, but not comprehensively explained. English characterizes Churchill as a consistent supporter of wanton imperial violence. He can only sustain this claim by ignoring anything that contradicts it. Thus, English mentions that Churchill was involved in the one-sided British victory at Omdurman, but neglects to mention that Churchill criticized the British treatment of enemy wounded. He mentions that Churchill said that the colonization of Australia and America was not in itself a “wrong” but ignores that Churchill opposed imperial atrocities such as the brutal suppression of the Bambatha Rebellion, or punitive expeditions in Nigeria, or the Amritsar massacre. Incidentally Churchill wasn’t “defending the suppression of Aborigines” when he made that infamous remark – he was refuting an argument against Jewish emigration to Palestine. Had Churchill been listened to, more Jewish people would have survived the Holocaust. It is also fanciful to suggest that a majority of white Americans or Australians in the 1930s would have disagreed with Churchill’s view. Amusingly, even when English is trying to be evenhanded, he gets his facts wrong. For example, he credits Churchill for cancelling the dispatch of troops to Tonypandy, ignoring the fact that Churchill reversed his position within a day because of widespread rioting in the town. The soldiers didn’t kill anyone but their presence brought the rioting a close immediately.

I'm sorry but what is this? I did history at uni, and I struggle to describe it, If one had to, you could define it as a self-absorbed, incoherent polemic. Part of the detritus thrown up by Brexit.One of my all-time favourite books is David Aaronovitch’s Voodoo Histories, and on its surface Fake History seemed to offer something similar. I have finished reading “Fake History: Ten Great Lies and How They Shaped the World” by Otto English. Overall, Fake History: Ten Great Lies and How They Shaped the World was an excellently researched and written work of non-fiction. Unfortunately, I feel the audiobook was not the best way to experience it. With that in mind I will talk about what I didn't like about the audiobook, but note that it didn't affect my rating of the book overall.