LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
A foreign correspondent for over two decades, Michael Peel has had plenty of time to reflect on how Britain's belief in its own myths, supposed core values and wartime nostalgia has guided it through the best and worst of times. But is it real? Of course belief can be one person's reality but to others it can appear fake and flimsy. In What Everyone Knows About Britain, Peel squints at our country's self image and finds comparisons across the globe.
The results make for fascinating reading, and the British caricature is essentially debunked. This is unquestionably a political book, particularly as its timing coincides with an approaching general election and comes on the back of Brexit. Peel pulls no punches, characterising Truss and Johnson as 'Flawed Prophets'. He lays into our nation's citizenship exam. He points to the recent political experiences of former colonies such as Nigeria as they grapple to work with our 'exceptionalism'. He points out that many of our national icons - such as St George and our national drink of tea - are not really very British at all.
There is a shortage of perspective from close allies or hostile states - and so Europe, the US, China and Russia don't make much of an appearance. This is no doubt to do with the author's CV which suggests most of his time was spent in West Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia. So he is able to write with some authority, for example, when he finds parallels between anti-royal protests in Thailand and our own simmering arguments around our monarchy. In the conservative government's recent Rwanda policy he finds inevitable comparisons with Australia's failed project to deport immigrants to Cambodia.
There is no doubt that Britain has been a considerable influence upon the world, particularly in the context of Empire, and those shared behaviours have in some ways perpetuated longer elsewhere than they have here. What Everyone Knows About Britain highlights these echoes of culture, but what it also does is imply that believing our own hype, even when the hype has gone, will at some point likely lead to a comeuppance. Perhaps it already has.
It's a good book that is unlikely to change minds, which kind of proves its own point.
Greg Hackett
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What Everyone Knows About Britain* (*Except The British) Synopsis
How do you see Britain?
That might depend on your point of view, and as long time British foreign correspondent, Michael Peel has come to understand, it can look very different from outside.
It's tempting to think of the UK as a fundamentally stable and successful nation. But events of the past few years, from Brexit to exposés of imperial history, have begun to spark fierce public debates about whether that is true. Is Britain, just a marginal northern European island nation, marked by injustices, corruption and with a bloody history of slavery, repression and looting?
And yet UK politics, media, and public opinion live constantly in the shadow of old myths, Second World War era nostalgia, and a belief in supposedly core British values of tolerance, decency and fair play. British politicians regularly exploit a damaging complacency that holds that everything will turn out okay, because, in Britain, it always does.
In WHAT EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT BRITAIN, Michael Peel digs into the national consciousness with the perspective of distance to pull apart the ways in which we British have become unmoored from crucial truths about ourselves. He shows us that from many perspectives we are no different from other countries whose own national delusions have seen them succumb to abuses of power, increased poverty and divisive conflict.
The battle over Britain's narrative is the struggle for its future and its place in the world. So, how do we escape the trick mirror - and see ourselves as we really are?
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781800961760 |
| Publication date: |
25th April 2024 |
| Author: |
Michael Peel |
| Publisher: |
Monoray an imprint of Octopus Publishing Group |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
264 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Biographies & Autobiographies
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| Other Genres: |
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Press Reviews
Michael Peel Press Reviews
A rare writer with the courage to tell Britain some home truths about itself and where it's headed. A much needed book. -- Ian Dunt What Britain needs at the moment is not to be talked up or talked down, but simply a sense of itself that's underpinned by clarity and honesty... This is exactly what Michael Peel provides in this persuasive, good-humoured book. -- Jonathan Coe
A wake-up call for those still under the illusion that Great Britain plc punches above its weight. -- Chris Mullin, author of A Very British Coup
Entertaining and smart - Michael Peel will have you agreeing or disagreeing with him vigorously about the state of Britain today. -- Geoff Norcott
It's very rare for a journalist to be a top-class reporter, top-class thinker and top-class writer. Michael Peel has the trifecta. This is a necessary book as well as an extremely entertaining one. Too much of the frenzied British debate about the UK's recent turmoil is insular, without any sense of foreign comparisons or insights. A British foreign correspondent is the perfect person to understand the country. -- Simon Kuper
Sharp, witty and eye-opening. As Peel convincingly argues, we can do so much better. Give it to your delusional right-wing uncle and watch his head blow off! -- Matthew Parker
