What better way to start the New Year than with a book review ? Let's keep it light to get back into the swing of things and start off with Terry Deary's A History of Britain In Ten Enemies. As the author of the Horrible Histories books*, this is guaranteed bestseller, and indeed it was one I both bought and received for Christmas. I'm not sure that's ever happened to me before.
* Which are amazing. The TV sketch show is genuinely brilliant and I would recommend it for viewers of all ages.
The book is... pretty good, overall, but very much a mixed bag. As I expected, it's pretty light on the detail and heavy on the jokes. Not all of the punchlines land well : some are just not funny, some are real groaners, but some are literally laugh-out-loud funny. You might not like it, but you'd have to be a pretty weird sort to ever get bored reading this. While the length of 200-odd pages mean it never gets into anything terribly meaty, the breadth of its coverage is really quite impressive given the space. It sort of reminded me of All The Countries We've Ever Invaded but in reverse.
In terms of style it feels aimed at a younger or more attention-lacking audience than your standard history book, though it's not for children as in the Horrible Histories series – there are a few bits which would be more Horrific than merely Horrible. The short, uniform-length sentences do become at times quite irritating, and sometimes the jokes are a bit forced and unnecessary. Probably the worst aspect is that it's sometimes hard to tell if Deary is being genuinely revisionist or merely trying to be provocative, and some of the claims made are either misleading or simply downright wrong. I'll say that with some confidence : I'm not a historian, but I've read enough to know (on occasion) when Deary is not so much going against the grain as leaving it completely. More on that shortly.
On the other hand, there is not a whiff of patriotic zeal to be found anywhere. For every point Deary awards to the British, he's sure to take one away again soon after*. Nor, thankfully, does he ever languish in the sort of anti-society, nihilistic, holier-than-thou self-loathing that afflicts a good many commentators**. It's cynical, but it's an amusing, wry cynicism that never takes itself too seriously. Righteousness is not a condition that ever much affects Deary. He doesn't ever judge the past by the standards of the present, or go out of his way to pronounce moral judgements except when it's unavoidable. He has axes to grind but no hobby-horses to ride, so to speak.
* There's a lot of good-natured mockery here. The American chapter is likely to find few fans across the pond, describing it as "calling itself the land of the free, apparently without irony... they also have a fondness for guns, eating unhealthy food, and playing rounders professionally."
** Much as "science advocates" are sometimes not themselves researchers, perhaps "historical commentator" would be a good term for Deary, who isn't a historian.
I guess I have to say that I agree with Deary's sentiments pretty much entirely, even if I take all his specific claims with a rather large pinch of salt. Chief among these for setting the alarm bells ringing was his assertion that there were only a few prisoners killed at Agincourt : not even hundreds, says Deary, let alone the thousands as described in the "stories". This I find straightforwardly unbelievable. I've read several much longer and more in-depth books on Henry V's Agincourt campaign and nobody else has ever contested that the mass executions happened; they are attested by both sides. Exactly how they were viewed at the time is certainly more contestable, but I know of no reason to doubt that they took place. For a dramatic bit of revisionism like this, very much more evidence is needed than a simple denial as Deary gives.
Similarly, his estimate on the number of combatants puts things on such an equal footing as to make the victory either seem totally unimpressive or requiring an absurdly efficient killing process from the English. Sure, the typical ratio of 5 French : 1 English is probably an exaggeration*, but again, more justification is needed to reduce this down to something more like 1.5 : 1.
* But not necessarily. If I recall correctly, Juliet Barker reckoned it probably was on the higher end of things with ~5-6,000 English and as many as 36,000 French, but with a full third of those (12,000) not actually involved in combat – thus giving an effective ratio of more like 4 : 1. This isn't crazy; other battles have been won with such ratios.
Another strange one was how British historians have viewed King John. I've grown up learning of him as being widely regarded as one of our worst-ever rulers, but Deary says it was actually the Catholic Church who hated him more than the British. This simply doesn't ring true to me at all; citation : again, longer books than these have not alluded to anything like this. Deary can also have a rather simplistically negative view of the Church as being simply a Bad Thing* which feels hopelessly one-sided. Again, is he being provocative or sincere ? It's very hard to tell, and I would have greatly preferred an approach of "here's what I honestly think". I don't mind disagreeing with an author but I do object to second-guessing their intentions. I like a good argument, but we have to do it in good faith or it's just not interesting.
* To the point that Henry VIII splitting from Rome was unquestionably a Good Thing in Deary's mind. He should perhaps have read Dominion first.
Deary does rather better in the chapters on the Dark Ages. He quotes Beecham that one should "try anything once, except incest and folk dancing", hilariously linking this back to an early incestuous monarch who was at least never accused of the going full Morris. He tells the story of Vortigen without the whole incident with the dragon, which I found very informative but he seems to think everyone already knows. I suspect he might be showing his age there a bit : we just don't learn about this in school any more, probably because nobody trusts the Dark Age materials enough (quite rightly, in my view).
In terms of the Vikings Deary is not a fan of the tendency to portray them as a complex people and ignore their bloodthirsty side; for Deary, they're more straightforwardly marauding rapists. Well, they certainly did do that, but this doesn't mean they didn't have more interesting and positive aspects to their characters and societies as well, but it's a perfectly respectable opinion. He gets a bit weird in his interpretation of the English though, e.g. describing Alfred's achievements as "underwhelming" is a truly strange thing to say, and calling Cnut the first king of Britain without even mentioning Athelstan is practically criminal. Likewise, Harold Godwinson come across here as basically a good guy, but in other books he seems to be much more of a gangster and a thug (which, yes, is different from the typical sort of militaristic-despotism which was endemic to medieval monarchs).
Adding further to the oddness of the whole thing is the grapeshot-like approach Deary takes to adding extra information and context to famous events. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't. He does mention, for instance, the total failure of the French attempt to counter-invade England following Crecy, and the repeated failed Spanish Armadas that came after the main event (all of which were even less successful than the first)... but not the utter failure that was the English Armada. He describes Nelson as a "throughly unsavoury character" because of his tenuous links with slavery, but then again, details the Dutch raid on the Medway (which we are apt to pointedly ignore) in some detail as the shambolic failure of the British which is clearly was.
Finally, one thing I found lacking was the counterfactuals. I don't have a hard time believing, as per the blurb, that without Hitler Churchill would have just been an opposition windbag, but more exploration of what effect our enemies had on us, what might have happened without them, would have been interesting. Deary does explore how enemies act as a unifying force, sometimes on their victims but sometimes on themselves (e.g. Joan of Arc was more successful in uniting the French than actually attacking the English). There's a degree of subtlety here – it may be a light book and parts of it are questionable but it isn't stupid – but it feels under-exploited.
And of course... we've had a lot more than ten enemies. The books feels like it was rattled off rather quickly. I for one would definitely like a much longer, more carefully-written sequel that consults more with professional historians, justifies its claims more carefully, and expands both in breadth and depth. We've had All The Countries We've Ever Invaded; the time is surely right for All The Countries Who Ever Invaded Us.
As it stands, I'm giving it 7/10 as a good read. I'd normally knock a lot more points off for inaccuracy, but I'm cutting the author some slack because he more than deserves it. I can't imagine there's anyone alive who's done more for getting children interested in history, and I very much hope he manages a few more books for adults before he too fades into the past.
