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This Little Britain - How One Small Country Changed the Modern World (Paperback)
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This Little Britain - How One Small Country Changed the Modern World (Paperback)
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List price R279
Loot Price R222
Discovery Miles 2 220
You Save R57 (20%)
Supplier out of stock. If you add this item to your wish list we will let you know when it becomes available.
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Celebratory, witty and incredibly insightful, Harry Bingham
explores the eccentricities and customs of the British nation in a
bid to answer a question which has everyone debating - Who are we?
For the British, 'Who are we?' is an oddly difficult question.
Although our national self-assessment usually notes a number of
good points (we're inventive, tolerant and at least we're not
French), it lists a torrent of bad ones too. Our society is
fragmented and degenerate. Our kids are thugs, our workers
ill-educated, our public services abysmal. We drink too much. Our
house prices are crazy, our politicians sleazy, our roads jammed,
our football team rubbish. When 'The Times' invited readers to
suggest new designs for the backs of British coins, one reader
wrote in saying, 'How about a couple of yobs dancing on a car
bonnet or a trio of legless ladettes in the gutter?' Is there
really nothing to be proud of? British inventors have been
responsible for myriad marvels we now take for granted, from the
steam engine to the world wide web. British medical and public
health innovations - vaccination, integrated mains sewerage,
antiseptic surgery - have saved far more lives than all other
medical innovations put together. And why stop there? The British
empire covered a quarter of the earth's surface but used an army
smaller than that of Switzerland to exert its rule. The world
speaks our language. Our scientists have won vast numbers of Nobel
Prizes. The evolution of 'habeas corpus', trial by jury and the
abolition of torture aren't purely British in inspiration, but owe
more to us than to anyone else. Our parliamentary democracy has
been hugely influential in spreading ideals of liberty and
representative government round the world. If the modern world is
richer, freer, more peaceful, more democratic and healthier than it
was, then Britain has played a leading role in that transformation.
This book is about just that. Taking a particular interest in the
many things that we did first, or best, or most, or were the only
ones ever to do, this book focuses especially on those of our
oddities that spread across the world - everything from football to
the rule of law.
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