I picked up Volume 1 of Churchill's A History Of The English Speaking Peoples on Audible and am enjoying it thoroughly. Written in 1956, it is ignorant of those scourges of modern academia, diversity studies and political correctness. The writing is fresh and direct and Churchill doesn't clutch a string of pearls and faint at calling one group superior over another.
It's a good partner to The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (itself written between 1776 and 1789). Whereas one tells the story of Rome falling apart through decadence and civil war, the other shows the effects of that decadence on Rome's furthest province, Britain. The Romans pacified Britain from 51 AD to about 400 AD. Despite being continually beset by barbarians, Roman military might was able to defend Britain and allow the citizens to live peaceful and prosperous lives.
When troops were removed from Britain to serve in campaigns on the Continent, typically on one side or another in a civil war or to fight off barbarians encouraged by a Roman army weakened by civil wars, the Romanized British were no longer able to defend their borders. Britain itself would have been self-sufficient in defense, but the Roman Empire dragged them back into barbarism as a result of it's own collapse.
7 comments:
I had (and read) a battered copy of that when I was a kid. I think I got it at the St Vincent de Paul.
My favorite part was that covering the earlest period, which is, naturally, the period of which the least is known.
Those "barbarians" were my ancestors, Sir.
Hmph.
Tsh, tsk, tsk -- *everyone* knows that one is allowed to show indignation as having one's barbarian ancestors truthfully called 'barbarians' *only if* they were "non-white"; and one gets bonus indignation points if one's culture is *still* barbaric.
I'm not sure which pack illiterate moron barbarians were my ancestors. However, I'm sure I can hold my head up with pride and justly think that somewhere, way back when, my ancestors were burning people alive as sacrifices to pagan gods, robbing innocent villagers and slaying neighbors.
Thank God I don't belong to a group that obsesses on the "nobility" of my ancestors and takes offense at every (accurate) slight.
Exactly. We're *all* descended from murderers.
My ancestors were blue. And they're still barbarians.
Look, TW, you can stop with those kind of comments. We've been down that woad enough times already.
Ba-da-bump!
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