A Stranger's Eye: A Foreign Correspondent's View of Britain

by Fergal Keane

As an Irishman, Keane brings an informed but somewhat detached eye to Britain today. In these tapes he asks particularly whether the expectations of 1945 have been achieved, and where does the country stand as it enters the millennium.

Genres: Nonfiction, Journalism

224 pages, Paperback

First published December 5, 2000

Reviews

[ciara. · Rating 5 out of 5]

my only complaint is that it wasn’t long enough! love Fergal Keane

[Fionnuala · Rating 4 out of 5]

My quest to read every one of Fergal Keane's books continues. Somehow I missed this one and stumbled across it in a used bookshop, and man. I can't believe I hadn't heard of it before. It's extremely good; I want to say a little outdated in some ways because it's a portrait of the country in the mid/late nineties, and I suppose one could be forgiven for thinking such portraits go quickly out of date. Yet with something as engrained as poverty, it is still so topical -- both because of the depressing fact that these problems are still very much evident, but also because it's part of the wider tapestry of how we got here in the first place.

I've recently read Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class, an excellent deep-dive into the demonisation of the British working class. A Stranger's Eye is very similar in terms of its close look, but is more personal and less academic. It also ranges a little wider, including more that's directly relevant to my own interests: it talks a lot of Scotland, the country where I have now lived for fifteen years, and it also talks of Northern Ireland, where I'm originally from. These two countries, despite being part of the UK, are often neglected -- in fact, England is often the main focus, but this book covers Wales closely as well. It's very well-rounded, and takes into account the different contexts within each country, for example the role of the war in Northern Ireland and the enduring community divides which will also interact with every aspect of society going forward, including progress and poverty.

Keane sticks very close to case studies, basing his assessments on the real people he has spoken to and observed, meeting with them multiple times and keeping in touch so the stories are less a glimpse and more of a long-term, evolving thing. It's very clear that this is the kind of journalism he's best at, and we're very lucky that he's turned all the things that make him an excellent foreign correspondent to issues much closer to home. Despite the fact I was a child in single digits when Keane was researching this book, many of the stories are familiar to me as somebody who has struggled with poverty and who takes an interest in the subject; despite the time that has passed they are still relevant and almost ageless in their telling. I really think this is a must-read in the wider genre of poverty literature.

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book. It provides such a humanised and unifying perspective of such different groups of people. It was so interesting to read it over 20 years since it was written and compare the world he describes then to the one we have now. The way he always recognises his own positionality is quite inspiring and makes each chapter that much more relatable. Fergal Keane slaps he's such a badass and I'd love to grab a beer with him and chat all day :)