How England Made the English: From Why We Drive on the Left to Why We Don't Talk to Our Neighbours

by Harry Mount

Harry Mount's How England Made the English: From Why We Drive on the Left to Why We Don't Talk to Our Neighbours is packed with astonishing facts and wonderful stories.

Q. Why are English train seats so narrow?

A. It's all the Romans' fault. The first Victorian trains were built to the same width as horse-drawn wagons; and they were designed to fit the ruts left in the roads by Roman chariots.

For readers of Paxman's The English, Bryson's Notes on a Small Island and Fox's Watching the English, this intriguing and witty book explains how our national characteristics - our sense of humour, our hobbies, our favourite foods and our behaviour with the opposite sex - are all defined by our nation's extraordinary geography, geology, climate and weather.

You will learn how we would be as freezing cold as Siberia without the Gulf Stream; why we drive on the left-hand side of the road; why the Midlands became the home of the British curry. It identifies the materials that make England, too: the faint pink Aberdeen granite of kerbstones; that precise English mix of air temperature, smell and light that hits you the moment you touch down at Heathrow.

Praise for Harry Mount:

'Highly readable, encyclopeadic, marvellous, illuminating. Mount portrays England via dextrous excavations of its geography, geology, history and weather' Independent

'Fascinating. Mount's an intelligent, funny and always interesting companion' Daily Mail

'Charming and nerdily fact-stuffed' Guardian

Harry Mount is the author of Amo, Amas, Amat and All That, his best-selling book on Latin, and A Lust for Window Sills - A Guide to British Buildings. A journalist for many newspapers and magazines, he has been a New York correspondent and a leader writer for the Daily Telegraph. He studied classics and history at Oxford, and architectural history at the Courtauld Institute. He lives in north London.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Travel, British Literature, Science, Economics, Historical

351 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Jill H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was expecting something completely different from what this book offered. It is basically a geography of the England and how it affects the way people live....housing, trade, dialect, etc. The major thrust is about the weather and why it is so varied on such a small island. I think the title suggest something a little more than that which I thought would be more a study of English customs, food, and why they are so self contained.

It is an interesting book if you are looking for a climate explanation but expect not much more than that.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating compendium of facts that helped me understand why English towns, architecture, and gardens are the way they are and how geological features and weather patterns have shaped the country. Some of it seems self-explanatory: an island nation is prone to isolationist policies (hello, Brexit!); most industry was centered in the North, so it remains a place of huge, grimy cities like Manchester and Leeds. But I learned a ton, and all the more so because I have been to and thus was able to picture many of the places Mount discusses. The first few chapters are a little dry, but Chapter 5 (on English towns) is a highlight and the book picks up from there. There’s a knowing humor to Mount’s writing that even an outsider can appreciate.

Some favorite observations:

“This indifference to bad weather bleeds into the pleasingly unself-indulgent side of the English, along with its more extreme Spartan edges: including a positively masochistic taste for discomfort and rain, and the ideal combination of the two – the camping holiday.”

“Where buildings become archetypally English is in the adaptation of those foreign architectural features – an example of our make-do-and-mend, hodgepodge approach to the visual arts, our taste for the compromise over the grand projet, and our preference for customizing other people’s ideas rather than creating our own.” [e.g. Italian-inspired terrace houses]

“The English aren’t good at immaculate, idealized beauty – whether it’s their clothes, their art or their teeth. The beauty that springs up, unbidden, from apparent neglect is more their thing.”

“In England, 100 years is nothing and 100 miles is enormous; in America, it’s the other way round.”

[Andrew Robins · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly enjoyable, wittily written book on what makes the English, errm, English.

Some interesting facts to be had, but the relentless, factual style made me feel like I'd been put in the stocks and pelted with facts for several hours.

Obviously, in a book of this type, you're going to get a lot of generalisations, it is to be expected, nonetheless, some of them didn't really sound like the English people I spend time with, I must say.

A couple of gripes. Firstly, it is very south-centric, if you live north of, say, Birmingham, there's not so much local interest material as there is for the rest of us. Secondly, I thought there was a little too much on physical, geographical and geological stuff, and not enough on the human angle. I found myself skim reading a few chapters as a result.

Still, a pretty enjoyable, easy quick read.

[Zoe Carney · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to abandon this book, as the smug, upper middle class Tory tone of it was making me nauseous. Very much not as described on the cover - I expected it to be more like Kate Fox's Watching the English (which is fantastic, and a much better read for any visitors to our land and/or Anglophiles), but it's not.

It wants you to think it's some thoughtful, scholarly exploration of Englishness. It isn't. What it is is a Daily Mail/Tory view of England, coupled with some fairly xenophobic and unresearched claims. For example, did you know that in no other country will you find people who cycle to work? I imagine the the people of the Netherlands, Sweden, and most of northern Europe at least would be startled to hear this 'fact'.

Basically, a load of nonsense, and not worth your time.

[Stewart Monckton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very gentle history of England and the English. Do not look here for rough edges, thoughtful criticism and review. Here you find an England of rose flanked doors, respectful tolerance and shy introspection.

The basic (and probably legitimate) premise of this book is that the physical nature of land, nature and weather formed the idiosyncratic character of the English. So, England made the English rather than the other way around.

Well, that’s a good idea – but how long has England and the English existed? And is what the author identifies as “English” any more than the product of Victorian success and 20th Centaury decline? And is a Cornish Englishman the same as a Cumbrian? And do Cumbrians really exist, or are they ghosts of Cumberland and Westmoreland? I doubt that “English” is enough of a fixed entity to be able to pin down the factors that make them so to any one time, place or environmental factor.

I don’t think you can have a book that openly admits that the geology of England is more varied than almost anywhere else on Earth, but still maintain that it is responsible in part for some overarching Englishness. Clearly England’s geology has had (and still has) a profound impact on the economy of the country – but the dead coal villages of NE Somerset and Northumbria are really very, very different despite clear (but often unacknowledged) similarities.

Now, this book is interesting to read – even if I did want to argue with the author on many occasions – but some things really need to be tightened up a bit. “Most of us living in the south of England share DNA with pure blood Celts” - which would be of great interest if anybody could agree who the Celts were, and even if they actually even existed as a distinct people. “Bath ….. the only naturally occurring hot springs in England” – really? There are hot springs in nearby Bristol. I could go on – but I think I have made my point.

But in the end I think it was the circularity of some of the arguments put forward in this book that I found most hard to cope with. A love of ancient ruins is (apparently) a marker of Englishness because the English countryside has lots of them. So, where does this start? They are there because they are valued, or did they become valued because they were there?

So, this seems to a flawed, maybe inaccurate book, which nonetheless does try to look at the now contested ground of Englishness.

I would suggest you try to read a few chapters before you press purchase.

[Martin Belcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book, but it just didn't give me the satisfied feeling that I was expecting. This book attempts to describe how the country of England made the English as a people what they are today, generally as a nation we are perceived as being tolerant, fair, hatred of confrontation, fiercely protective of our privacy, our homes and our gardens. What the author does in this book is describes in detail the long list of very fortunate occurrences that have joined together to make England and the English, namely our geographic location, a small, long, thin island off the coast of Northern Europe, fertile soil and a huge variation in landscapes in such a small country. Temperate, maritime stable weather that varies very little from wet and mild encouraging our green and pleasant land to grow. The island mentality that spurned a nation of shopkeepers, the industrial revolution and of sailors and a powerful navy that would go on to create an empire. This mentality still persists today in our "look down our noses" attitude to our European neighbours and the continual political rows over the European Union and further integration that the English don't want.

The book goes on to describe why the English love our gardens, why we prefer to live in houses than flats and prefer to own rather than rent which is completely different to the French and Germans. How urban planning particularly after World War Two when the majority of English cities and industrial areas had suffered damage from Nazi bombing raids ruined a lot of cities with the 1960's penchant for high rise blocks and modernist brutalist architecture. Now, thankfully our continual love of the terraced house, back and front gardens, mock Tudor look and municipal parks has overtaken the high rise and much of these have been demolished. What you get from this book is a sense of England being two distinct places, the England of rolling hills, villages, pubs and cricket greens that still pretty much exists and the other England one of urbanisation, ring roads, motorways, out of town shopping developments, high rise glass curtained offices and huge estates of identikit housing. An uneasy marriage but one that still works in a very unusual eccentric English way.

A nice read, but is bogged down sometimes in fine topographical, geographical and meteorological data. The national character of the English is not fully investigated here. Perhaps it is too complicated to explain, as an Englishman myself I know and understand but for foreigners, it may be a little puzzling!

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating and illuminating book: far more interesting and thoughtful than its subtitle suggests. 'From why we drive on the left to why we don't talk to our neighbours' doesn't cover it at all.

Mount begins by examining the England's geology, and shows how its great variety has begun to shape its economic activity. He moves on to the soil, our waterways, our towns, landowning history, gardens, industry..... He's full of information and most interesting facts which he dispenses with a light touch. His enthusiasm fostered my enthusiasm. This is an engaging and often amusing book, from which I learnt a great deal

[Jonathan Hertzog · Rating 2 out of 5]

The chapters are hit and miss - some are interesting, others are dull, but I confess I have no sense of English geography, so a full chapter on the different kinds of rocks and clay in each region of the country strikes me as tedious. Each chapter tends to have a weak or non-existent conclusion and some of the statements on English "uniqueness" are unfounded and laughably incorrect (such only the English refer to rural areas as "the country.") But overall it was decent.

[Bridget Simpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating, interesting, well written read. I had to push myself through certain parts of it (the origins of rock for example) but virtually every page had an insightful gem.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was not quite what I had expected from the title. I thought it was more along the line of "Watching the English", ie. an anthropological sort of study of why people in England behave the way they do.

That's definitely not what the book turned out to be. The first couple of chapters were a - very detailed - look into the geology of the country, the groundwork so to speak. It followed why the Romans or Normans had settled where they did and how that shaped the development of the country.

The next chapters go on to speak about the weather, the railway and this is also when the author makes comparisons to life on the continent and how the English climate/soil etc made different developments possible. Very interested was the chapter on building with local stone and distinctive styles of buildings.

I felt that while the book was excellently researched, the comparisons were not 100% scientific, rather based on the author's observation on what he'd seen/heard of life elsewhere. That said, I still liked this a lot - it was a good read and gave me some insights I might not have come up with on my own.

It's a book you'll like if you like England a lot, not a book for someone who wants to understand the country or its people better. But if you like England than this is a great read.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

The English landscape is unlike any other country around the world, from the patchwork fields, to the geology beneath our feet. We have an amazing diversity, from salt marches to soaring cliffs, sandy beaches to the stunning Jurassic coast.

In this book Mount looks at the interaction between the English landscape, and the English psyche, and how the land and place in the world that we inhabit has influenced us as much as we have influenced it. He breaks this down into four categories, geography, weather, geology and history. Each chapter in the book covers an aspect one of these elements and considers just how the place where someone lives is defined by the soils, the rock and by water.

It is a informative book, and does make for interesting reading. Towards the end of the book the focus drops a little and the solid links that were there in the beginning become more tenuous towards the end.

[Sam Stothard · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poorly written. Poorly referenced. Poorly argued.

Hard to tell with this book where the facts start and the author's opinion ends. Other than a few interesting bits of information the book is largely just conjecture and badly argued opinions by the author who seems to wildly contradict himself from chapter to chapter. Little attention is paid to building any coherent analysis, instead each chapter consists of disjointed "facts" loosely centred around a vague theme. Worst of all though is the referencing which would fail any undergraduate degree and often doubtfully supports the evidence given, that's when the author can even be bothered to provide one! Overall, the book doesn't even deal with what it sets out to do. Hardly any image of Englishness or the English character is built up, let alone explained.

[Gwan · Rating 2 out of 5]

In fairness, I haven't finished it, but is feel like this one was marketed somewhat deceptively. It's basically an exploration of England's geography, architecture, urban planning, geology etc. but dressed up as a psychogeographical exploration of the English character (at least in my edition, which was subtitled something like "from why we drive on the left to why we don't talk to our neighbours). This results in some very dull chapters recounting, for example, the different types of building stone used across England or the soil types in different counties (while we're at it, would it have killed them to include some maps?). Probably of interest to those keen on that sort of thing, but not at all what I was expecting.

[Charlotte Kluskens · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 ✨
It’s a hard one to review. It was not at all what I expected it to be: a fun read about England and the English; educational but light-hearted. That’s how it sells itself in my opinion. In truth the book was hard to get through and a bit dense, because of all the statistics thrown at you every page. That being said, I read this book to gain insight and it did deliver that. I am happy I read it and learned many new things!
I do recommend it for research (as I used it) or if you’re keen to delve into learning about England in a geographical and geological way. Don’t read it if you don’t already have a good sense of English cities and towns because you won’t be able to follow along otherwise.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was disappointed with this book. It started out being very interesting, but petered away to be little more than a collection of rather boring statistics.

I did, however, like learning that moats where basically medieval status symbols. Not unlike the wooden butterflies on houses in New Zealand in the 1960s.

[James Webster · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting nuggets but this is smug, "Daily Telegraph" stuff. The heroes are aristocratic landowners and anyone who resists the evil influences of planning regulations &c. The baddies are the 1960s and modernism in general. Orwell did the "English character" so much better in 1940.

[Michael Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some dull chapters at the beginning but worth persevering with.

[Merel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit geographical at times but still a very interesting read. I felt very intellectual reading this as opposed to any ordinary novel.

[Alex Sarll]

Perhaps I wouldn't have been reading this with such a keen eye for disappointment if I hadn't had to sort out its multiple Goodreads records first and, in so doing, discovered that Harry Mount's other publications include The Wit And Wisdom Of Boris Johnson. But even without that I suspect his insistence on the British dislike of the grand project, as with his reference to "a predominantly low-slung cityscape like London's", would have kept reminding me that it's been a very long 13 years (unlucky for almost all) since this book's 2012 publication. The promise to explain our national character with reference to geology, weather and history is itself a fairly grand project, of course; a synthesis of Weatherland, A Land and more. And it would be unfair to deny that there are times when Mount comes within grasping distance of achieving that, particularly when he digs up specifics, on which he's normally sound: I'd always had a faint sense of Kent looking slightly different, say, and now I know it's because until only a century ago, it had different rules on primogeniture to the rest of the country. But when he, for instance, attempts to link English awkwardness with the opposite sex to early industrialisation plus sheds, he's on ground as shaky as the flailing Just So stories of ev-psych (and besides, what's so great about preening Mediterranean machismo anyway? Isn't that an awkwardness too, just a more obnoxious, performatively masked one?). Sometimes he's even arguing with himself: early on, the manageable weather and temperate climate make the English casual cycling commuters in a way that baffles Americans; a few chapters down the line, our cult of the automobile makes us somewhere casual cycling is an oddity when compared to the Continent. Yes, both of these things can be true, but if so it probably helps to wrap them all up together, not give the impression of different chapters with entirely different theses. The most noticeable because most recurrent of these clashes is his deeply conflicted – though never acknowledged as such – attitude towards planning restrictions. Though I suppose most of us have that, really: obviously there should be much lighter regulation of the sort of building I like in the places I want it, and utterly draconian restrictions on things I don't like or that are in the wrong places. Still, I can't altogether lose patience with him when he concludes "That, perhaps, is as good an answer as any. England has got some very good flowers and some very old laws."

[Will Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really wanted to like this book. It is filled with interesting information and insights into English character and England itself. However, it goes on and on and far too much in the weeds for my liking. I can only read so much about soil and rocks! The later chapters improved but overall I would have a hard time recommending it to any but the most diehard Anglophile.

[Pep Bonet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not much interesting. Nothing to do with the praise on the cover page. Almost abandoned after page after page of geology and kinds of stones. I preferred to take two math courses to avoid geology when I was a University student and had to read all the names of rocks the author pops into the text. Fortunately, it goes better afterwards, but still no answer to thee questions in the title and a lot of self complacency. The author has such conservative architectural taste that he makes Prince Charles look like an avantgardiste. Snob, class-conscious and little interesting for my taste. Sometimes you make mistakes and here it was my turn when I bought the book.

[Richard Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable and easy going

I read the book with delight both at its theme and at the delightful style. It’s a fascinating stroll through England and the idiosyncrasies which either made the English who they are or where the English character has shaped the land. Whichever it is, you will finish the book both better informed and thoroughly entertained.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really had higher hopes for this one, since it’s all about the sort of things that I find interesting. The idea is a great one, the execution is pretty good, and the editing is a little distracting at times.

[Kriegslok · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harry Mount writes from a rather bourgeois perspective but his book is packed with lots of interesting information even if some of his observations and conclusions in attempting to define the English are a little tenuous. He sets out to examine England and the English in relation to general themes including geology, weather, geography and history. Personally I found the geological influence on the architecture and building materials of England probably the most interesting aspect. While this is something I was aware of his expansion of the topic is fascinating. Similarly the roll of communication routes and the impact of the builders themselves on shaping both the environment and the development of social groups and institutions (not least of which being the Public House). A short but interesting chapter is dedicated to the origins of place names and the forensic science of place names as a means of learning about the people who founded and lived there. Also touched on is the English/British concept of what constitutes “the countryside”. When looking at the human impact on the natural landscape of England it quickly becomes clear that much of what we consider to be the natural world is actually very unnatural and the product of just a few centuries of human activity, much of it hacking down the indigenous woodland to build ships and provide agricultural land. Similarly so much that is looked at as being traditional country past-times is relatively recent upper class playing at being country. The mass depopulation of the countryside and its privatisation is touched on but not in great detail despite perhaps having the greatest single impact upon the landscape of England and the development of the English as a nation (accompanied as it soon was by the revolution in industrial production and the projection of colonial power). I also found the section on English gardens, both small and large, very interesting. I'm not an expert on such things but have always preferred the wild look that is the hallmark of many English gardens as opposed to the ornate and over worked symmetry of much of mainland Europe. In conclusion Mount bemoans the standardisation of everything, much of which I can identify with.

[Gruia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author's listing of the endowments of English geology is surprisingly engrossing: like seeing reality in a whole different spectrum of light. Boundaries that could only be guessed before, are now made clear. These chapters are for the sort of people who take pleasure in surveying and cataloging, like I do.

The rest of the book is about how the English view themselves, in a nostalgic "we still prefer the warped, ancient look" way. It idealizes the shabby and unkempt dwelling as a closeness to nature, when most of the time it means letting mold grow in the house. Mount misses the mark when he veers away from his geographical expertise and attempts anthropological explanations that point at English exceptionalism. It's silly and amateurish, greatly devaluing the text as a whole.

[Johanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting look at England, it looks at a number of areas: geology, geography, history etc to explain why England is the way it is and why it is so recognisable from an aeroplane's window. It looks at; the way the appearance chances in relatively small areas / distances, dialect/accents and the structure and appearance of our towns. I docked this a star because some of the political explanation / content irked me (overly southern biased Tory I thought) with its constant praising of unfettered construction and friendly aristocracy but I really enjoyed most of it it and it had some fascinating nuggets of information in it.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, info on how weather, geography, geology, social and industrial development have shaped the English outlook and character.

"The Anglo-saxons had forty different words for hill....they all meant distinct varieties of hill."

Regarding the bungalow, "The small single-storey house was adopted from colonial India. The Hindi 'bangla' means Bengali and, thus, a house in the Bengal style....the first British bungalows were built at Westgate-on-Sea and Birchington, both on the Kent coast, in 1869."

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was rich with history and interesting trivia on all aspects of what it is to be English. I found myself saying, "Did you know..." to my husband after every few pages. The facts are neatly delivered and easy to digest. This was a good read and not historically preachy, as you might expect it to be.

Though the author is English I found him to be rather negative on the English people. He believes them to be antisocial and that couldn't be further from the truth. The English are very outgoing and keen to visit and chat, much more so than Americans.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

While any book portraying any culture is going to be filled with broad generalisations (although fastidiously explained and backed-up), almost every conceivable facet of Englishness is discussed, sometimes in excruciating detail.
I found the tone to be very dry at times, and some of the topics equally so (the chapter on soil types and country gate shapes were a struggle to finish), but that is far outweighed by the sheer insight and clever 'dot-connecting' of the author, punctuated by the occasional wry English joke.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

El libro parte de una premisa bastante interesante de cómo la geografía, clima y otras características el país pueden haber influido en el caracter de sus habitantes.
Sin embargo, y aunque todos los capítulos empiezan bien, considero que la discusión de la idea es demasiado larga y va perdiendo la razón de ser. No estoy segura pero de la sensación de haber nacido como una columna de opinión y luego haber querido ampliarlo y, en este caso, ha disminuido la calidad del libro.