Max Arthur's compilation of First World War memories, Forgotten Voices of the Great War, offers a reminder of the scale of human experience within the 1914-18 conflict. Arthur, a military historian best known for his history of the RAF and his account of the Falklands campaign in 1982, has assembled hundreds of excerpts from the sound archives of the Imperial War Museum. Officers, rank-and-file troops, Australians, Americans, war widows, women in the munitions factories, and German soldiers too, all left oral testimony of their experiences, and these interviews provide the basis of the book. Arthur has put them in chronological and campaign order, and provided a general commentary, but beyond that, has left the rich and moving record to speak for itself.

The sheer humdrum ordinariness of modern warfare--the mud and rain, the relentless loss of life and inevitability of death, the pointless routine of attrition--come over in the matter-of-fact recollections of so many. But so too does the humanity and morality of the ordinary soldier--a factor that rather belies the recent emphasis amongst some historians on how soldiers loved to kill. Arthur might have intruded more. No biographical information is given about the owners of these "voices", nor does he say when, where and how this oral testimony was gathered.

These quibbles aside this is a worthwhile read and should encourage people not only to observe a minute's silence on Remembrance Day, but also to spend a few hours in the Imperial War Museum itself. --Miles Taylor

Compelling Reading, 18 Nov 2008
The recent 90th anniversary of the end of the Great War spurred me to seek out some literature on the subject. My mother's father fought at Ypres and Arras, and was invalided home after a mustard gas attack. I was only 10 years old when he died, but I wish I could have talked to him about his experiences. This book gives a potted history of each year of the war followed by accounts of various survivors who were interviewed in the 1970's. I aim to read more of the Forgotten Voices series to further my knowledge. I received Harry Patch's The Last Fighting Tommy in the post today and look forward to reading his highly acclaimed account of his time in the trenches.

A window through time, 05 Nov 2008
War is never going to be a pleasant thing to read about, and this is no exception - it consists of testimonies from survivors, which have been cut into chunks and organised so that they refer to events in the order that they happened.

I happened across this in a charity shop at the end of October, and I can think of no better way to understand the real meaning of Armstice day - the absolute horror of the things they went through is something that I'd never be able to do. You get a real flavour of the way people were then too - women back in England handing out feathers (the symbol of a coward) to men in the street, completely unaware that a lot of them were back from the trenches sans uniform, which really affected the soldiers.

I won't go into the individual stories, but you can hear the voices rising from the page as you read - as an ex-actor, this is excellent source material if you're doing something set in this period.

A REALLY REALLY GOOD READ. Not many books have affected me as much as this one.

Voices of the Lost Generation, 30 Jul 2008
Forgotten Voices of the Great War is a collection of real life experiences of the First World War, as told by the ordinary people who lived through it.
I must admit that my knowledge of the First World War is a little blank. My only previous experience of this period was through school lessons about trench warfare, or by watching Blackadder goes forth. Therefore I can't make an analysis about the historical accuracy of the book. But what I can say is that I found it a very powerful and poignant work.

The author, Max Arthur, has spent several years listening to thousands of recordings of the men and women who lived during this period. These tapes were kept as archival records in the Imperial War Museum, after they were collected in 1972. These are essentially the voices of a lost generation. The book is divided into chapters that cover every year of the war, from 1914 to 1918. Within these chapters are accounts taken from individual campaigns or battles such as Gallipoli, The Second Battle of Ypres, or the Battle of Mons.

Arthur has sifted through these records to bring out the most varied and unique stories. We are told about gas attacks, boredom or banter between soldiers, but we also get to hear the points of view of people like Elizabeth Owen, who was a schoolgirl at the outbreak of the war. Many of these stories are touching and funny, while others can be truly horrifying. In the section on Gallipoli for instance, we get a story of the games played between British and Turkish soldiers, with some of them throwing tinned bully beef and strings of figs to each other as presents. In the same section it also tells you of the horrible and undignified deaths caused by dysentry and other diseases, which will probably be some of the most terrible accounts of the war you will ever read.

This is an incredibly powerful and important book. If you have ever wondered about life during the First World War, then this book should be the first one you read. Extraordinay.

Not everyone can get to source documents, 23 May 2008
This book is now part of a series collated from the IWM archives. Not everyone can get to source documents through time or distance. This book has brought some of the sources into the public arena. Naturally such short personal reminicences give a fragmented picture. If you want opinions handed to you, read a 'definitive' history. All history books, however good, are shaped by the author. If a book like this makes you question recived wisdom, it has done its job.

Good, but difficult to put in context., 22 May 2008
This is an excellent collection of first-hand accounts of the Great War, from a variety of different contemporary contributors to that war.

The only problem with this book is that it divorces the account from much of the wider picture, so it tends to foster a 'I've read that book, I know all about WW1 now' sort of attitude. Perhaps it's just a reflection of our rushed aged, but I think the many other books, which describe some of the development of the war and intertwine similar first-hand accounts, do more justice to those milions who gave their lives on all sides, than a quick flit through this collection of stand-alone, very short stories.

Admittedly, the book has a very important role to play in appealing to those who may othwerwise not take an interest in WW1, so for that reason alone, it is a worthwhile production.

What is it about the English? Not the British overall, not the Scots, not the Irish or Welsh, but the English. Why do they seem so unsure of who they are? As Jeremy Paxman remarks in his preface to The English, being English "used to be so easy". Now, with the Empire gone, with Wales and Scotland moving into more independent postures, with the troubling spectre of a united Europe(and despite the raucous hype of "Cool Britannia"), the English seem to have entered a collective crisis of national identity.

Jeremy Paxman has set himself the task of finding just what exactly is going on. Why, he wonders, "do the English seem to enjoy feeling so persecuted? What is behind the English obsession with games? How did they acquire their odd attitudes to sex and food? Where did they get their extraordinary capacity for hypocrisy?" He ranges widely in pursuit of answers, sifting through literature, cinema and history. It is an intriguing investigation, encompassing many aspects of national life and character (such as it is), including the obligatory visit to that baffling phenomenon, the funeral of Princess Diana. Yet Paxman finds something fresh and interesting to say about even that now rather threadbare topic. In the end, he seems to find further questions to ask instead of answers. But why not? To him it is a sign that the English are acquiring a new sense of self. And some indication of this might lie in the obvious response to his remark that the English, being top of the British Imperial tree, had nicknames for the fellow nationalities--Jock, Taffy, Paddy and Mick--but there was no corresponding name for an Englishman. Of course, there is now, and it comes from one of the bits of empire to which so many undesirables were exported: Whinging Pom. --Robin Davidson

Compelling Reading, 18 Nov 2008
The recent 90th anniversary of the end of the Great War spurred me to seek out some literature on the subject. My mother's father fought at Ypres and Arras, and was invalided home after a mustard gas attack. I was only 10 years old when he died, but I wish I could have talked to him about his experiences. This book gives a potted history of each year of the war followed by accounts of various survivors who were interviewed in the 1970's. I aim to read more of the Forgotten Voices series to further my knowledge. I received Harry Patch's The Last Fighting Tommy in the post today and look forward to reading his highly acclaimed account of his time in the trenches.

A window through time, 05 Nov 2008
War is never going to be a pleasant thing to read about, and this is no exception - it consists of testimonies from survivors, which have been cut into chunks and organised so that they refer to events in the order that they happened.

I happened across this in a charity shop at the end of October, and I can think of no better way to understand the real meaning of Armstice day - the absolute horror of the things they went through is something that I'd never be able to do. You get a real flavour of the way people were then too - women back in England handing out feathers (the symbol of a coward) to men in the street, completely unaware that a lot of them were back from the trenches sans uniform, which really affected the soldiers.

I won't go into the individual stories, but you can hear the voices rising from the page as you read - as an ex-actor, this is excellent source material if you're doing something set in this period.

A REALLY REALLY GOOD READ. Not many books have affected me as much as this one.

Voices of the Lost Generation, 30 Jul 2008
Forgotten Voices of the Great War is a collection of real life experiences of the First World War, as told by the ordinary people who lived through it.
I must admit that my knowledge of the First World War is a little blank. My only previous experience of this period was through school lessons about trench warfare, or by watching Blackadder goes forth. Therefore I can't make an analysis about the historical accuracy of the book. But what I can say is that I found it a very powerful and poignant work.

The author, Max Arthur, has spent several years listening to thousands of recordings of the men and women who lived during this period. These tapes were kept as archival records in the Imperial War Museum, after they were collected in 1972. These are essentially the voices of a lost generation. The book is divided into chapters that cover every year of the war, from 1914 to 1918. Within these chapters are accounts taken from individual campaigns or battles such as Gallipoli, The Second Battle of Ypres, or the Battle of Mons.

Arthur has sifted through these records to bring out the most varied and unique stories. We are told about gas attacks, boredom or banter between soldiers, but we also get to hear the points of view of people like Elizabeth Owen, who was a schoolgirl at the outbreak of the war. Many of these stories are touching and funny, while others can be truly horrifying. In the section on Gallipoli for instance, we get a story of the games played between British and Turkish soldiers, with some of them throwing tinned bully beef and strings of figs to each other as presents. In the same section it also tells you of the horrible and undignified deaths caused by dysentry and other diseases, which will probably be some of the most terrible accounts of the war you will ever read.

This is an incredibly powerful and important book. If you have ever wondered about life during the First World War, then this book should be the first one you read. Extraordinay.

Not everyone can get to source documents, 23 May 2008
This book is now part of a series collated from the IWM archives. Not everyone can get to source documents through time or distance. This book has brought some of the sources into the public arena. Naturally such short personal reminicences give a fragmented picture. If you want opinions handed to you, read a 'definitive' history. All history books, however good, are shaped by the author. If a book like this makes you question recived wisdom, it has done its job.

Good, but difficult to put in context., 22 May 2008
This is an excellent collection of first-hand accounts of the Great War, from a variety of different contemporary contributors to that war.

The only problem with this book is that it divorces the account from much of the wider picture, so it tends to foster a 'I've read that book, I know all about WW1 now' sort of attitude. Perhaps it's just a reflection of our rushed aged, but I think the many other books, which describe some of the development of the war and intertwine similar first-hand accounts, do more justice to those milions who gave their lives on all sides, than a quick flit through this collection of stand-alone, very short stories.

Admittedly, the book has a very important role to play in appealing to those who may othwerwise not take an interest in WW1, so for that reason alone, it is a worthwhile production.

Distinctly average, 05 Nov 2008
The first 70-100 pages form the start of an interesting and entertaining essay- however the book does not close on many of the promises made in the opening chapters. For example, many references are made to the impossibility of defining a singular English identity- certainly true enough. However, the book gradually builds into a sustained focus on 'the breed' (read traditional stereotype of a Public School educated Englishman from the Home Counties). There are ample opportunities to reject further discussion of this tired stereotype but few are given more than lip service. This book may be interesting for some and opens with some interesting observations, however it fails to materialise as a coherent comment on the diverse English people.

Enjoyable and informative, 17 Jul 2008
Paxo writes well and is a joy to read. This book is far ranging on who we English are, our strange national characteristics which relate to our history. "Like a pair of newly-weds in a sabotaged car, every people sets off into the future clattering behind it the tin-cans of its history." Here are many tin cans and some glimpses too of the possible road ahead. I would recommend this book to visitors to our country. The only slight draw back is that reading it ten years after it was written I sense it is slightly dated. It predates 9-11, the rise of Islamic militancy and a new huge wave of immigration, to say nothing of the effects of devolution and the rise of Scottish nationalism. All these are now having an effect on what it means to be English today. Some of his chapters are masterfull and memorable. Our animosity to the French and the sentimentality over Diana are examples.

Enjoyable and informative, 17 Jul 2008
Paxo writes well and is a joy to read. This book is far ranging on who we English are, our strange national characteristics which relate to our history. "Like a pair of newly-weds in a sabotaged car, every people sets off into the future clattering behind it the tin-cans of its history." Here are many tin cans and some glimpses too of the possible road ahead. I would recommend this book to visitors to our country. The only slight draw back is that reading it ten years after it was written I sense it is slightly dated. It predates 9-11, the rise of Islamic militancy and a new huge wave of immigration, to say nothing of the effects of devolution and the rise of Scottish nationalism. All these are now having an effect on what it means to be English today. Some of his chapters are masterfull and memorable. Our animosity to the French and the sentimentality over Diana are examples.

Good attempt, 12 Jun 2008
Doesn't always flow perfectly, but that is because it is very dense and well written.
Reading it is not effortless, but well worth it

Heavy weather, 04 May 2008
I expected much from this book, particularly given the glowing praise blazoned on its back cover. Oh dear!
Despite (or because) it is so heavily referenced -a commendable sign of scholarly groundwork- ultimately Paxman has achieved little more than to string together a mass of quotations, references and extracts in a singularly meandering and confusing stream of consciousness.
As for humour, I am an ordinary middle-of-the-road Englishman from a less privileged background than Jeremy. And I didn't laugh. Not once.
Sadly, the self-indulgent Paxman demonstrates neither the warm sense of joy nor common touch of the much more grounded, observant and incisively witty Bryson.

Compelling Reading, 18 Nov 2008
The recent 90th anniversary of the end of the Great War spurred me to seek out some literature on the subject. My mother's father fought at Ypres and Arras, and was invalided home after a mustard gas attack. I was only 10 years old when he died, but I wish I could have talked to him about his experiences. This book gives a potted history of each year of the war followed by accounts of various survivors who were interviewed in the 1970's. I aim to read more of the Forgotten Voices series to further my knowledge. I received Harry Patch's The Last Fighting Tommy in the post today and look forward to reading his highly acclaimed account of his time in the trenches.

A window through time, 05 Nov 2008
War is never going to be a pleasant thing to read about, and this is no exception - it consists of testimonies from survivors, which have been cut into chunks and organised so that they refer to events in the order that they happened.

I happened across this in a charity shop at the end of October, and I can think of no better way to understand the real meaning of Armstice day - the absolute horror of the things they went through is something that I'd never be able to do. You get a real flavour of the way people were then too - women back in England handing out feathers (the symbol of a coward) to men in the street, completely unaware that a lot of them were back from the trenches sans uniform, which really affected the soldiers.

I won't go into the individual stories, but you can hear the voices rising from the page as you read - as an ex-actor, this is excellent source material if you're doing something set in this period.

A REALLY REALLY GOOD READ. Not many books have affected me as much as this one.

Voices of the Lost Generation, 30 Jul 2008
Forgotten Voices of the Great War is a collection of real life experiences of the First World War, as told by the ordinary people who lived through it.
I must admit that my knowledge of the First World War is a little blank. My only previous experience of this period was through school lessons about trench warfare, or by watching Blackadder goes forth. Therefore I can't make an analysis about the historical accuracy of the book. But what I can say is that I found it a very powerful and poignant work.

The author, Max Arthur, has spent several years listening to thousands of recordings of the men and women who lived during this period. These tapes were kept as archival records in the Imperial War Museum, after they were collected in 1972. These are essentially the voices of a lost generation. The book is divided into chapters that cover every year of the war, from 1914 to 1918. Within these chapters are accounts taken from individual campaigns or battles such as Gallipoli, The Second Battle of Ypres, or the Battle of Mons.

Arthur has sifted through these records to bring out the most varied and unique stories. We are told about gas attacks, boredom or banter between soldiers, but we also get to hear the points of view of people like Elizabeth Owen, who was a schoolgirl at the outbreak of the war. Many of these stories are touching and funny, while others can be truly horrifying. In the section on Gallipoli for instance, we get a story of the games played between British and Turkish soldiers, with some of them throwing tinned bully beef and strings of figs to each other as presents. In the same section it also tells you of the horrible and undignified deaths caused by dysentry and other diseases, which will probably be some of the most terrible accounts of the war you will ever read.

This is an incredibly powerful and important book. If you have ever wondered about life during the First World War, then this book should be the first one you read. Extraordinay.

Not everyone can get to source documents, 23 May 2008
This book is now part of a series collated from the IWM archives. Not everyone can get to source documents through time or distance. This book has brought some of the sources into the public arena. Naturally such short personal reminicences give a fragmented picture. If you want opinions handed to you, read a 'definitive' history. All history books, however good, are shaped by the author. If a book like this makes you question recived wisdom, it has done its job.

Good, but difficult to put in context., 22 May 2008
This is an excellent collection of first-hand accounts of the Great War, from a variety of different contemporary contributors to that war.

The only problem with this book is that it divorces the account from much of the wider picture, so it tends to foster a 'I've read that book, I know all about WW1 now' sort of attitude. Perhaps it's just a reflection of our rushed aged, but I think the many other books, which describe some of the development of the war and intertwine similar first-hand accounts, do more justice to those milions who gave their lives on all sides, than a quick flit through this collection of stand-alone, very short stories.

Admittedly, the book has a very important role to play in appealing to those who may othwerwise not take an interest in WW1, so for that reason alone, it is a worthwhile production.

Distinctly average, 05 Nov 2008
The first 70-100 pages form the start of an interesting and entertaining essay- however the book does not close on many of the promises made in the opening chapters. For example, many references are made to the impossibility of defining a singular English identity- certainly true enough. However, the book gradually builds into a sustained focus on 'the breed' (read traditional stereotype of a Public School educated Englishman from the Home Counties). There are ample opportunities to reject further discussion of this tired stereotype but few are given more than lip service. This book may be interesting for some and opens with some interesting observations, however it fails to materialise as a coherent comment on the diverse English people.

Enjoyable and informative, 17 Jul 2008
Paxo writes well and is a joy to read. This book is far ranging on who we English are, our strange national characteristics which relate to our history. "Like a pair of newly-weds in a sabotaged car, every people sets off into the future clattering behind it the tin-cans of its history." Here are many tin cans and some glimpses too of the possible road ahead. I would recommend this book to visitors to our country. The only slight draw back is that reading it ten years after it was written I sense it is slightly dated. It predates 9-11, the rise of Islamic militancy and a new huge wave of immigration, to say nothing of the effects of devolution and the rise of Scottish nationalism. All these are now having an effect on what it means to be English today. Some of his chapters are masterfull and memorable. Our animosity to the French and the sentimentality over Diana are examples.

Enjoyable and informative, 17 Jul 2008
Paxo writes well and is a joy to read. This book is far ranging on who we English are, our strange national characteristics which relate to our history. "Like a pair of newly-weds in a sabotaged car, every people sets off into the future clattering behind it the tin-cans of its history." Here are many tin cans and some glimpses too of the possible road ahead. I would recommend this book to visitors to our country. The only slight draw back is that reading it ten years after it was written I sense it is slightly dated. It predates 9-11, the rise of Islamic militancy and a new huge wave of immigration, to say nothing of the effects of devolution and the rise of Scottish nationalism. All these are now having an effect on what it means to be English today. Some of his chapters are masterfull and memorable. Our animosity to the French and the sentimentality over Diana are examples.

Good attempt, 12 Jun 2008
Doesn't always flow perfectly, but that is because it is very dense and well written.
Reading it is not effortless, but well worth it

Heavy weather, 04 May 2008
I expected much from this book, particularly given the glowing praise blazoned on its back cover. Oh dear!
Despite (or because) it is so heavily referenced -a commendable sign of scholarly groundwork- ultimately Paxman has achieved little more than to string together a mass of quotations, references and extracts in a singularly meandering and confusing stream of consciousness.
As for humour, I am an ordinary middle-of-the-road Englishman from a less privileged background than Jeremy. And I didn't laugh. Not once.
Sadly, the self-indulgent Paxman demonstrates neither the warm sense of joy nor common touch of the much more grounded, observant and incisively witty Bryson.


A lengthy telling of facts that does not enlighten., 30 Jul 2008
I was very disappointed by this book. I had expected a detective story, like the sub-title, and I had expected to get a wider understanding of the topic. With the mention of DNA analysis on the cover, I had expected to get some science, hopefully like Brian Sykes' very readable informative books.

This is not what happens. The author does not _show_ the reader, the author _tells_ the reader, at great length, many many many historical facts. If you are very interested in this part of ancient history and like having a great many facts recited at you, then maybe you will enjoy this book. The facts may well be true but they are not woven into a story and as the reader you don't get to see _why_ these facts are true. For example, why did such-and-such a gene originate in this area and then spread to that area, how do we know it wasn't the other way round? The book doesn't say, it just pompously tells you. And that's just one of the few dozen facts on that page.

Like one of the other reviewers said,

AVOID.

(makes mental note to self to read the Amazon reviews more thoroughly in future before buying books)

Disagree !, 13 Jul 2008
Unlike several of the reviewers, I have found this work very readable, and well presented. I was totally captivated.
Dr. Stephen Oppenheimer by his own admission is not by background an expert in linguistics, archaeology or history. But he is an expert in genetics who has been exasperated at the entrenched dogma in these disciplines, and has extended his research into these areas.
His results are plausible, very lucidly prfesented and a benchmark.
A great read, and very thought provocing !

An in depth re-analyis of 200 years of misinformation on English British roots., 13 Apr 2008
Oppenheimer gives a very convincing new look at pre-Roman Britain. Gone is the simplistic idea of an entirely Celtic people from John O Groats to Kent as perpetuated by the mis-understanding of Bede as propagated since the 1700s. In comes the far more likely idea of several cultures and languages occupying these shores including pre-English and probably pre-Indo-European peoples. With regard to the doubters I would say they doth protest too much. Oppenheimer destroys the idea of an Anglo Saxon genocide of a mythical Celtic England using DNA. He then points out that English has almost no Celt in it and yet is full of Latin. That entirely fits the idea of an already existing pre-English language adopting the words of the Superstrate language of Latin during Roman times. Traditionalists would have us believe that all latin came into English during Norman times. Certainly the Anglo Saxons were invited over to England, but as allies of their kin Vortigern, who was not a Celtic traitor as the Welsh Gildas would have us believe, but was himself Germanic with a latinised name.

The book backs up many ideas which have already been covered by Theo Venneman who believes English to be far older than Roman Britain, and by Colin Renfrew who moved away from the old school idea of all language being carried merely by conquest.

Celtic confusions, 10 Apr 2008
While we in North America have a distressing tendency to lump most of the inhabitants of the British Isles together, those living there are aware of their diversity. That awareness has been carried rather to extremes by some scholars and politicians. "What is a Celt?" has been a key question, as has been its follow-up "What really happened to the Celts?" Tied in with these queries is the problem of finding an origin for the Celts and just what language they spoke. Stephen Oppenheimer addresses these and related issues in a comprehensive "detective story" incorporating history, analytical genetics and linguistic studies. His conclusions, well depicted in this provocative study, will prove surprising to some, and perhaps distressing to a few.

The British Isles, he begins, have the advantage of being invaders of a "terra nullius" [uninhabited land] some fifteen thousand years ago. As the Last Glacial Maximum retreated before the rise of a revived warm period, humans were able to enter a land they'd been driven from thousands of years previously. While this situation offers nothing to the historian, archaeologists and geneticists have a clear starting point for placing and dating the migration. Not an island then, Britain was a peninsula jutting out from the European land mass. That provided an easy route from the Mediterranean shoreline, around what is now Iberia to the southern and western coasts of Britain. Since "western" here now means Eire, it's clear the first adjustment of opinion must accommodate Ireland and Britain. Clearly, there were later population movements, but where did they originate, how long did they last and what numbers of people were involved? Most significantly, what languages did they speak?

From his introductory survey, Oppenheimer proceeds to tease out the answers to these questions. The origins are traced back in time using genetic markers. Mitochondrial DNA, carried down the generations only through female inheritance factors provides one scenario. The Y chromosome, the genetic marker for men is analysed separately, then compared. In most, although not all cases, the matches are mutually supportive. Archaeological finds are used as further indicators which have the advantage of solid dating techniques to support them, unlike the DNA tests which rest on a calculation based on presumed mutation rates. The language question remains contentious. Oppenheimer links it with the spread of farming entering Europe from Anatolia introducing early forms of Celtic into Western Europe. The author's genetic analysis also overturns the idea that farmers "displaced" earlier hunter-gatherer societies in Europe and Britain. Instead, farming was adapted by the resident population and farmers' larger families added some population pressure, but hardly "displacement". The same holds true for the Roman occupation, which was more interested in social stability and tax collecting than genocide.

The post-Roman era has also led to the establishment of displacement myths and their more recent overturning. History, partly thanks to reliance on "Saint" Gildas, has stoked the fires of national sentiments by depicting the Angles and Saxons as a barbarian horde bent on ethnic cleansing of the indigenous "Celtic" peoples. Oppenheimer rejects this tradition, arguing instead that a "warrior elite" may have entered Britain, but this was a small population and a continuation of British-Continental ties in any case. Just who those "barbarians" were is problematic in any case, since the author sees ongoing contact with the Frisian and near shore of Europe rather than a conquering horde emerging from northern Germany. It is now generally accepted that the Norman "Conquest" was only slightly more intrusive than the Roman one, with an elite doing the ruling and the long-lasting indigenous population doing everything else like farming, herding and trading.

A major issue here is language. Linguists, Oppenheimer argues have been keen to avoid dating of language branching, mostly because early attempts came to grief. He goes so far as to separate "Celtic" populations from "celtic" languages. Part of the reason for this is the lack of a written base of celtic to use as a foundation. The Classical Period commentators in Greece and Rome wrote of "Celts" in a vague sort of way, and even a man on the ground, Julius Caesar was unable to make definitive comments about either the people or their languages. More precise cultural details were omitted entirely. Oppenheimer's path through the language issues is inevitably a tortured one, but he makes a serious effort at simplification. Whatever his success is due to a paucity of real data. For him, the genes speak louder than words. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Next time Stephen, check the text for errors before sending it to the publisher!, 20 Feb 2008
Stephen Oppenheimer should be ashamed of himself. There's interesting stuff trying to escape from his impossibly all-over-the-place, convoluted drafting, but I'm really looking forward to someone else writing a decent book on the subject.

Not least, the second of the three sections is an appalling mess. Where I used to work, if you'd sent out even the most initial, first, provisional draft to a close colleague in this state (repeated or near repeated paragraphs only a page or two apart, mis-labelled diagrams, etc) you'd have been taken out and shot. It isn't just that this middle section hasn't been proof read, the author doesn't appear to have done the barest minimum of reading it down for mistakes.

If I didn't know better, I'd think three sections had been written by different authors!

I also found myself thinking quite a bit about the tiny sample sizes.

That said, I am pretty much convinced by his central argument. However, it's more a matter of applying a bit of common sense to the random splatter of facts and quotes rather than as a result of persuasive, CLEAR argument on Oppenheimer's part. For goodness sake, the next time you set pen to paper, READ IT DOWN before publishing it!

Compelling Reading, 18 Nov 2008
The recent 90th anniversary of the end of the Great War spurred me to seek out some literature on the subject. My mother's father fought at Ypres and Arras, and was invalided home after a mustard gas attack. I was only 10 years old when he died, but I wish I could have talked to him about his experiences. This book gives a potted history of each year of the war followed by accounts of various survivors who were interviewed in the 1970's. I aim to read more of the Forgotten Voices series to further my knowledge. I received Harry Patch's The Last Fighting Tommy in the post today and look forward to reading his highly acclaimed account of his time in the trenches.

A window through time, 05 Nov 2008
War is never going to be a pleasant thing to read about, and this is no exception - it consists of testimonies from survivors, which have been cut into chunks and organised so that they refer to events in the order that they happened.

I happened across this in a charity shop at the end of October, and I can think of no better way to understand the real meaning of Armstice day - the absolute horror of the things they went through is something that I'd never be able to do. You get a real flavour of the way people were then too - women back in England handing out feathers (the symbol of a coward) to men in the street, completely unaware that a lot of them were back from the trenches sans uniform, which really affected the soldiers.

I won't go into the individual stories, but you can hear the voices rising from the page as you read - as an ex-actor, this is excellent source material if you're doing something set in this period.

A REALLY REALLY GOOD READ. Not many books have affected me as much as this one.

Voices of the Lost Generation, 30 Jul 2008
Forgotten Voices of the Great War is a collection of real life experiences of the First World War, as told by the ordinary people who lived through it.
I must admit that my knowledge of the First World War is a little blank. My only previous experience of this period was through school lessons about trench warfare, or by watching Blackadder goes forth. Therefore I can't make an analysis about the historical accuracy of the book. But what I can say is that I found it a very powerful and poignant work.

The author, Max Arthur, has spent several years listening to thousands of recordings of the men and women who lived during this period. These tapes were kept as archival records in the Imperial War Museum, after they were collected in 1972. These are essentially the voices of a lost generation. The book is divided into chapters that cover every year of the war, from 1914 to 1918. Within these chapters are accounts taken from individual campaigns or battles such as Gallipoli, The Second Battle of Ypres, or the Battle of Mons.

Arthur has sifted through these records to bring out the most varied and unique stories. We are told about gas attacks, boredom or banter between soldiers, but we also get to hear the points of view of people like Elizabeth Owen, who was a schoolgirl at the outbreak of the war. Many of these stories are touching and funny, while others can be truly horrifying. In the section on Gallipoli for instance, we get a story of the games played between British and Turkish soldiers, with some of them throwing tinned bully beef and strings of figs to each other as presents. In the same section it also tells you of the horrible and undignified deaths caused by dysentry and other diseases, which will probably be some of the most terrible accounts of the war you will ever read.

This is an incredibly powerful and important book. If you have ever wondered about life during the First World War, then this book should be the first one you read. Extraordinay.

Not everyone can get to source documents, 23 May 2008
This book is now part of a series collated from the IWM archives. Not everyone can get to source documents through time or distance. This book has brought some of the sources into the public arena. Naturally such short personal reminicences give a fragmented picture. If you want opinions handed to you, read a 'definitive' history. All history books, however good, are shaped by the author. If a book like this makes you question recived wisdom, it has done its job.

Good, but difficult to put in context., 22 May 2008
This is an excellent collection of first-hand accounts of the Great War, from a variety of different contemporary contributors to that war.

The only problem with this book is that it divorces the account from much of the wider picture, so it tends to foster a 'I've read that book, I know all about WW1 now' sort of attitude. Perhaps it's just a reflection of our rushed aged, but I think the many other books, which describe some of the development of the war and intertwine similar first-hand accounts, do more justice to those milions who gave their lives on all sides, than a quick flit through this collection of stand-alone, very short stories.

Admittedly, the book has a very important role to play in appealing to those who may othwerwise not take an interest in WW1, so for that reason alone, it is a worthwhile production.

Distinctly average, 05 Nov 2008
The first 70-100 pages form the start of an interesting and entertaining essay- however the book does not close on many of the promises made in the opening chapters. For example, many references are made to the impossibility of defining a singular English identity- certainly true enough. However, the book gradually builds into a sustained focus on 'the breed' (read traditional stereotype of a Public School educated Englishman from the Home Counties). There are ample opportunities to reject further discussion of this tired stereotype but few are given more than lip service. This book may be interesting for some and opens with some interesting observations, however it fails to materialise as a coherent comment on the diverse English people.

Enjoyable and informative, 17 Jul 2008
Paxo writes well and is a joy to read. This book is far ranging on who we English are, our strange national characteristics which relate to our history. "Like a pair of newly-weds in a sabotaged car, every people sets off into the future clattering behind it the tin-cans of its history." Here are many tin cans and some glimpses too of the possible road ahead. I would recommend this book to visitors to our country. The only slight draw back is that reading it ten years after it was written I sense it is slightly dated. It predates 9-11, the rise of Islamic militancy and a new huge wave of immigration, to say nothing of the effects of devolution and the rise of Scottish nationalism. All these are now having an effect on what it means to be English today. Some of his chapters are masterfull and memorable. Our animosity to the French and the sentimentality over Diana are examples.

Enjoyable and informative, 17 Jul 2008
Paxo writes well and is a joy to read. This book is far ranging on who we English are, our strange national characteristics which relate to our history. "Like a pair of newly-weds in a sabotaged car, every people sets off into the future clattering behind it the tin-cans of its history." Here are many tin cans and some glimpses too of the possible road ahead. I would recommend this book to visitors to our country. The only slight draw back is that reading it ten years after it was written I sense it is slightly dated. It predates 9-11, the rise of Islamic militancy and a new huge wave of immigration, to say nothing of the effects of devolution and the rise of Scottish nationalism. All these are now having an effect on what it means to be English today. Some of his chapters are masterfull and memorable. Our animosity to the French and the sentimentality over Diana are examples.

Good attempt, 12 Jun 2008
Doesn't always flow perfectly, but that is because it is very dense and well written.
Reading it is not effortless, but well worth it

Heavy weather, 04 May 2008
I expected much from this book, particularly given the glowing praise blazoned on its back cover. Oh dear!
Despite (or because) it is so heavily referenced -a commendable sign of scholarly groundwork- ultimately Paxman has achieved little more than to string together a mass of quotations, references and extracts in a singularly meandering and confusing stream of consciousness.
As for humour, I am an ordinary middle-of-the-road Englishman from a less privileged background than Jeremy. And I didn't laugh. Not once.
Sadly, the self-indulgent Paxman demonstrates neither the warm sense of joy nor common touch of the much more grounded, observant and incisively witty Bryson.


A lengthy telling of facts that does not enlighten., 30 Jul 2008
I was very disappointed by this book. I had expected a detective story, like the sub-title, and I had expected to get a wider understanding of the topic. With the mention of DNA analysis on the cover, I had expected to get some science, hopefully like Brian Sykes' very readable informative books.

This is not what happens. The author does not _show_ the reader, the author _tells_ the reader, at great length, many many many historical facts. If you are very interested in this part of ancient history and like having a great many facts recited at you, then maybe you will enjoy this book. The facts may well be true but they are not woven into a story and as the reader you don't get to see _why_ these facts are true. For example, why did such-and-such a gene originate in this area and then spread to that area, how do we know it wasn't the other way round? The book doesn't say, it just pompously tells you. And that's just one of the few dozen facts on that page.

Like one of the other reviewers said,

AVOID.

(makes mental note to self to read the Amazon reviews more thoroughly in future before buying books)

Disagree !, 13 Jul 2008
Unlike several of the reviewers, I have found this work very readable, and well presented. I was totally captivated.
Dr. Stephen Oppenheimer by his own admission is not by background an expert in linguistics, archaeology or history. But he is an expert in genetics who has been exasperated at the entrenched dogma in these disciplines, and has extended his research into these areas.
His results are plausible, very lucidly prfesented and a benchmark.
A great read, and very thought provocing !

An in depth re-analyis of 200 years of misinformation on English British roots., 13 Apr 2008
Oppenheimer gives a very convincing new look at pre-Roman Britain. Gone is the simplistic idea of an entirely Celtic people from John O Groats to Kent as perpetuated by the mis-understanding of Bede as propagated since the 1700s. In comes the far more likely idea of several cultures and languages occupying these shores including pre-English and probably pre-Indo-European peoples. With regard to the doubters I would say they doth protest too much. Oppenheimer destroys the idea of an Anglo Saxon genocide of a mythical Celtic England using DNA. He then points out that English has almost no Celt in it and yet is full of Latin. That entirely fits the idea of an already existing pre-English language adopting the words of the Superstrate language of Latin during Roman times. Traditionalists would have us believe that all latin came into English during Norman times. Certainly the Anglo Saxons were invited over to England, but as allies of their kin Vortigern, who was not a Celtic traitor as the Welsh Gildas would have us believe, but was himself Germanic with a latinised name.

The book backs up many ideas which have already been covered by Theo Venneman who believes English to be far older than Roman Britain, and by Colin Renfrew who moved away from the old school idea of all language being carried merely by conquest.

Celtic confusions, 10 Apr 2008
While we in North America have a distressing tendency to lump most of the inhabitants of the British Isles together, those living there are aware of their diversity. That awareness has been carried rather to extremes by some scholars and politicians. "What is a Celt?" has been a key question, as has been its follow-up "What really happened to the Celts?" Tied in with these queries is the problem of finding an origin for the Celts and just what language they spoke. Stephen Oppenheimer addresses these and related issues in a comprehensive "detective story" incorporating history, analytical genetics and linguistic studies. His conclusions, well depicted in this provocative study, will prove surprising to some, and perhaps distressing to a few.

The British Isles, he begins, have the advantage of being invaders of a "terra nullius" [uninhabited land] some fifteen thousand years ago. As the Last Glacial Maximum retreated before the rise of a revived warm period, humans were able to enter a land they'd been driven from thousands of years previously. While this situation offers nothing to the historian, archaeologists and geneticists have a clear starting point for placing and dating the migration. Not an island then, Britain was a peninsula jutting out from the European land mass. That provided an easy route from the Mediterranean shoreline, around what is now Iberia to the southern and western coasts of Britain. Since "western" here now means Eire, it's clear the first adjustment of opinion must accommodate Ireland and Britain. Clearly, there were later population movements, but where did they originate, how long did they last and what numbers of people were involved? Most significantly, what languages did they speak?

From his introductory survey, Oppenheimer proceeds to tease out the answers to these questions. The origins are traced back in time using genetic markers. Mitochondrial DNA, carried down the generations only through female inheritance factors provides one scenario. The Y chromosome, the genetic marker for men is analysed separately, then compared. In most, although not all cases, the matches are mutually supportive. Archaeological finds are used as further indicators which have the advantage of solid dating techniques to support them, unlike the DNA tests which rest on a calculation based on presumed mutation rates. The language question remains contentious. Oppenheimer links it with the spread of farming entering Europe from Anatolia introducing early forms of Celtic into Western Europe. The author's genetic analysis also overturns the idea that farmers "displaced" earlier hunter-gatherer societies in Europe and Britain. Instead, farming was adapted by the resident population and farmers' larger families added some population pressure, but hardly "displacement". The same holds true for the Roman occupation, which was more interested in social stability and tax collecting than genocide.

The post-Roman era has also led to the establishment of displacement myths and their more recent overturning. History, partly thanks to reliance on "Saint" Gildas, has stoked the fires of national sentiments by depicting the Angles and Saxons as a barbarian horde bent on ethnic cleansing of the indigenous "Celtic" peoples. Oppenheimer rejects this tradition, arguing instead that a "warrior elite" may have entered Britain, but this was a small population and a continuation of British-Continental ties in any case. Just who those "barbarians" were is problematic in any case, since the author sees ongoing contact with the Frisian and near shore of Europe rather than a conquering horde emerging from northern Germany. It is now generally accepted that the Norman "Conquest" was only slightly more intrusive than the Roman one, with an elite doing the ruling and the long-lasting indigenous population doing everything else like farming, herding and trading.

A major issue here is language. Linguists, Oppenheimer argues have been keen to avoid dating of language branching, mostly because early attempts came to grief. He goes so far as to separate "Celtic" populations from "celtic" languages. Part of the reason for this is the lack of a written base of celtic to use as a foundation. The Classical Period commentators in Greece and Rome wrote of "Celts" in a vague sort of way, and even a man on the ground, Julius Caesar was unable to make definitive comments about either the people or their languages. More precise cultural details were omitted entirely. Oppenheimer's path through the language issues is inevitably a tortured one, but he makes a serious effort at simplification. Whatever his success is due to a paucity of real data. For him, the genes speak louder than words. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Next time Stephen, check the text for errors before sending it to the publisher!, 20 Feb 2008
Stephen Oppenheimer should be ashamed of himself. There's interesting stuff trying to escape from his impossibly all-over-the-place, convoluted drafting, but I'm really looking forward to someone else writing a decent book on the subject.

Not least, the second of the three sections is an appalling mess. Where I used to work, if you'd sent out even the most initial, first, provisional draft to a close colleague in this state (repeated or near repeated paragraphs only a page or two apart, mis-labelled diagrams, etc) you'd have been taken out and shot. It isn't just that this middle section hasn't been proof read, the author doesn't appear to have done the barest minimum of reading it down for mistakes.

If I didn't know better, I'd think three sections had been written by different authors!

I also found myself thinking quite a bit about the tiny sample sizes.

That said, I am pretty much convinced by his central argument. However, it's more a matter of applying a bit of common sense to the random splatter of facts and quotes rather than as a result of persuasive, CLEAR argument on Oppenheimer's part. For goodness sake, the next time you set pen to paper, READ IT DOWN before publishing it!

Curate's Egg, 28 Dec 2008
Despite the celebrity reviews I found the text on the science of the story of human life in Britain rather thin. Of the 142 pages of the book just over 100 are on peripherals - 34 pages of a potted history of what mistakes people made in the 19th & 20th centuries (Piltdown again!), 14 pages on a very superficial review of what drives ice ages, 27 pages (!!!) of apologia on climate change and how we all have to try harder and 28 pages of thoughts from the team - so not much left to cover the meat of the subject. It is a pity as I think AHOB have a lot to offer and I would have liked to have read much more about their work and results.

What happened at the end?, 21 Dec 2008
I was very happy with the Homo Britannicus until the final chapter. All of a sudden, it stops being about prehistory and becomes yet another tiresome rant about global warming. If I wanted to be hectored about the evils of coal then I'd be reading Jonathon Porritt, George Monbiot or any other colossally wealthy enviromentalist.

If Chris Stringer wanted to write about the environment, then where are the dendrochronoligical discussions in his book, talking about the wholesale deforestation of Britain during the Neolithic and early Bronze ages? What about megafaunal extinction? Why skip 6,000 years?

Whilst the rest of the book is good, the last chapter sours the whole experience.

AHOB advances an alert, 04 Jan 2008
For a good many schoolchildren [too many, IMV], the history of Britain begins with Julius Caesar crossing the Channel. Confronted by resistance by the "blue people", he forcefully pushed the Island Kingdom into the historical arena. This outlook is regrettably shortsighted, as Chris Stringer makes vividly clear in this stunning account of pre-historic Britain. Although the first early human finds didn't occur there, the concept of "Stone Age" was vigorously debated in Britain as the artefacts and fossils emerged in view, particularly in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Moreover, it was British scholars like John Hutton and Charles Lyell who took the lead in extending the age of the Earth. That extension led to speculation and investigation of who and what had come before, demolishing the view of yet another Englishman, James Ussher who had postulated an Earth "created" in October of 4004 BCE. In short, stratigraphy began replacing Scripture.

Stringer explains how Britain was subjected to several "invasions" long before the Roman political martyr was glorified, then assassinated. These invasions weren't for booty or slaves, but for dinner. Changes in climate resulted in changes in sea level, with Britain forming a peninsula of Europe many times over the millennia. Another result of climate led to large parts of that peninsula being sheathed in ice, rendering it uninhabitable to human or other invaders. They made it, finally, with the first human artefacts being dated at 700 000 years ago. They weren't dining on mutton, however. It was deer, rabbits, and astonishingly, hippopotamus. The image Stringer offers of hippos crossing the Mediterranean and swimming along the Atlantic littoral to reach what is now Suffolk, isn't one easily dismissed from memory. They thrived in "Britain", along with wolves, lions and other tropical animals. And they were hunted by the humans who had followed them from Africa - albeit by a different route. Until the cold returned. Then it was reindeer, woolly mammoth and fur-bearing rhinos. As the ice advanced, such species, along with their hunters, vanished from the landscape.

These cycles of habitability over the British Peninsula have occurred several times just in the period of human occupation. The worst ice age there was 450 000 years ago, and it was severe enough to keep the peninsula free of humans for 50 thousand years after its retreat. After a temperate period allowing new settlement, humans were again pushed into Europe only twenty thousand years later. Other shifts led to inexplicable vacating by humans for a lengthy period, even though life abounded in Europe. Neanderthal arrived about 60 thousand years ago. A large-brained species, they worked out how to keep warm by burning bones in their hearths. The accumulation of fossil evidence, subject to close analysis and dating techniques, is providing an entirely new story of early human habitation in Northwest Europe. Mobility was a major factor - it's almost presumptuous to title this book "Homo Britannicus".

As a founder of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain [AHOB] research project, Chris Stringer is at once one of the driving forces and spokesmen of studies of the distant human past. For a time, it seemed this span reached back half a million years, but a recent underwater find at Pakefield pushed the earliest date back another 200 millennia. Stringer handles such challenges with ease. He's able to convey to the reader immense time leaps, yet apparently not leaving any gaps in the narrative. The information about palaeoclimates, changes in the British - European shoreline are well explained and supported by excellent maps depicting the era under discussion. How long have we known that the Thames was once a tributary of the Rhine? There are photographs - some portentous - about the conditions in Britain over time. One of the photos shows the edge of a village which will soon drop into the sea as a new climatic event - this one human enhanced - brings the sea ever further inland. The message is clear - climate has cleared humans from Britain or encouraged their settlement more than once. What does today's climate change portend for the British Isles - and for the rest of us? [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Not an easy read but worth it, 04 Dec 2007
Buy this in hardcover, the paperback (which i ordered by mistake) is too small and the pictures are rubbish. Its not exactly good reading, I personally dont like his writing style- bit erratic and jumpy, but the book is definately worth persevering with if you want the most up to date work in this field- and Chris Stringer is most definately the major star in this field at the moment (i exclude a big bunch of frankly loony Americans and the equally looney but eminantly loveable Francis Prior) Its all a bit BRITAIN orientated, which seeing as we were just a peninsular of europe for most of our history is a tad weird, why set boundaries anachronistically?? It passed the test though- I put it down and wanted more, which is all i can ask really.

Enjoyable but Slight, 22 Nov 2007
Over the last half-million years, the climate of Britain has swung back and forth many times between ice ages and warmer, lusher inter-glacial periods. During several periods of warmer climate, early humans came and settled here, but when the ice returned they either died out or were driven out. The story of early humans in Britain is one of repeated re-colonisation. Miraculously, these early occupations have left traces that can still be found, almost all of them in the south-east of England - traces further north and west having been erased by the ice sheets. This amazing fact illuminates the whole of this little book.

This story, though, is only the intersection of two much bigger stories. The first is the shaping of our landscape through the ice ages, itself only the last chapter of a much longer story. The second is the development and spread of early humans, first in Africa, and then later on in Europe. Investigation of sites of human occupation in Britain has contributed to both of these, but in both cases the evidence from British sites has to be examined along with evidence from many other places. As a result, the chronological chapters which form the best part of this book have to cram in a lot of background information in a short space - about the succession of small mammal species, for example, or physical methods of dating sites. It's an enjoyable read, but it left me wanting more information about almost everything. The strict chronological format makes for a repetitious feeling - here come those voles again! Is it the publisher who assumed that a British book-buying public only wants to read about Britain, and isn't interested in a wider European story? If so, they are wrong, at least as far as this reader is concerned. The only way to make sense of a 200,000-year-old site in Britain is to place it in the context of sites of similar ages in other countries. This must surely be routine for professional archaeologists, so why do they think the rest of us aren't interested too?

These chapters make up a great half of a book, but the rest of it is much weaker. The historical introduction covers well-known ground, and could have been omitted. The chapter on global warming makes some good points, but it's too much for such a small book. The subject is fascinating, but does it have to be presented at a level suitable for a TV documentary? It could have done so much more, without putting people off.

Compelling Reading, 18 Nov 2008
The recent 90th anniversary of the end of the Great War spurred me to seek out some literature on the subject. My mother's father fought at Ypres and Arras, and was invalided home after a mustard gas attack. I was only 10 years old when he died, but I wish I could have talked to him about his experiences. This book gives a potted history of each year of the war followed by accounts of various survivors who were interviewed in the 1970's. I aim to read more of the Forgotten Voices series to further my knowledge. I received Harry Patch's The Last Fighting Tommy in the post today and look forward to reading his highly acclaimed account of his time in the trenches.

A window through time, 05 Nov 2008
War is never going to be a pleasant thing to read about, and this is no exception - it consists of testimonies from survivors, which have been cut into chunks and organised so that they refer to events in the order that they happened.

I happened across this in a charity shop at the end of October, and I can think of no better way to understand the real meaning of Armstice day - the absolute horror of the things they went through is something that I'd never be able to do. You get a real flavour of the way people were then too - women back in England handing out feathers (the symbol of a coward) to men in the street, completely unaware that a lot of them were back from the trenches sans uniform, which really affected the soldiers.

I won't go into the individual stories, but you can hear the voices rising from the page as you read - as an ex-actor, this is excellent source material if you're doing something set in this period.

A REALLY REALLY GOOD READ. Not many books have affected me as much as this one.

Voices of the Lost Generation, 30 Jul 2008
Forgotten Voices of the Great War is a collection of real life experiences of the First World War, as told by the ordinary people who lived through it.
I must admit that my knowledge of the First World War is a little blank. My only previous experience of this period was through school lessons about trench warfare, or by watching Blackadder goes forth. Therefore I can't make an analysis about the historical accuracy of the book. But what I can say is that I found it a very powerful and poignant work.

The author, Max Arthur, has spent several years listening to thousands of recordings of the men and women who lived during this period. These tapes were kept as archival records in the Imperial War Museum, after they were collected in 1972. These are essentially the voices of a lost generation. The book is divided into chapters that cover every year of the war, from 1914 to 1918. Within these chapters are accounts taken from individual campaigns or battles such as Gallipoli, The Second Battle of Ypres, or the Battle of Mons.

Arthur has sifted through these records to bring out the most varied and unique stories. We are told about gas attacks, boredom or banter between soldiers, but we also get to hear the points of view of people like Elizabeth Owen, who was a schoolgirl at the outbreak of the war. Many of these stories are touching and funny, while others can be truly horrifying. In the section on Gallipoli for instance, we get a story of the games played between British and Turkish soldiers, with some of them throwing tinned bully beef and strings of figs to each other as presents. In the same section it also tells you of the horrible and undignified deaths caused by dysentry and other diseases, which will probably be some of the most terrible accounts of the war you will ever read.

This is an incredibly powerful and important book. If you have ever wondered about life during the First World War, then this book should be the first one you read. Extraordinay.

Not everyone can get to source documents, 23 May 2008
This book is now part of a series collated from the IWM archives. Not everyone can get to source documents through time or distance. This book has brought some of the sources into the public arena. Naturally such short personal reminicences give a fragmented picture. If you want opinions handed to you, read a 'definitive' history. All history books, however good, are shaped by the author. If a book like this makes you question recived wisdom, it has done its job.

Good, but difficult to put in context., 22 May 2008
This is an excellent collection of first-hand accounts of the Great War, from a variety of different contemporary contributors to that war.

The only problem with this book is that it divorces the account from much of the wider picture, so it tends to foster a 'I've read that book, I know all about WW1 now' sort of attitude. Perhaps it's just a reflection of our rushed aged, but I think the many other books, which describe some of the development of the war and intertwine similar first-hand accounts, do more justice to those milions who gave their lives on all sides, than a quick flit through this collection of stand-alone, very short stories.

Admittedly, the book has a very important role to play in appealing to those who may othwerwise not take an interest in WW1, so for that reason alone, it is a worthwhile production.

Distinctly average, 05 Nov 2008
The first 70-100 pages form the start of an interesting and entertaining essay- however the book does not close on many of the promises made in the opening chapters. For example, many references are made to the impossibility of defining a singular English identity- certainly true enough. However, the book gradually builds into a sustained focus on 'the breed' (read traditional stereotype of a Public School educated Englishman from the Home Counties). There are ample opportunities to reject further discussion of this tired stereotype but few are given more than lip service. This book may be interesting for some and opens with some interesting observations, however it fails to materialise as a coherent comment on the diverse English people.

Enjoyable and informative, 17 Jul 2008
Paxo writes well and is a joy to read. This book is far ranging on who we English are, our strange national characteristics which relate to our history. "Like a pair of newly-weds in a sabotaged car, every people sets off into the future clattering behind it the tin-cans of its history." Here are many tin cans and some glimpses too of the possible road ahead. I would recommend this book to visitors to our country. The only slight draw back is that reading it ten years after it was written I sense it is slightly dated. It predates 9-11, the rise of Islamic militancy and a new huge wave of immigration, to say nothing of the effects of devolution and the rise of Scottish nationalism. All these are now having an effect on what it means to be English today. Some of his chapters are masterfull and memorable. Our animosity to the French and the sentimentality over Diana are examples.

Enjoyable and informative, 17 Jul 2008
Paxo writes well and is a joy to read. This book is far ranging on who we English are, our strange national characteristics which relate to our history. "Like a pair of newly-weds in a sabotaged car, every people sets off into the future clattering behind it the tin-cans of its history." Here are many tin cans and some glimpses too of the possible road ahead. I would recommend this book to visitors to our country. The only slight draw back is that reading it ten years after it was written I sense it is slightly dated. It predates 9-11, the rise of Islamic militancy and a new huge wave of immigration, to say nothing of the effects of devolution and the rise of Scottish nationalism. All these are now having an effect on what it means to be English today. Some of his chapters are masterfull and memorable. Our animosity to the French and the sentimentality over Diana are examples.

Good attempt, 12 Jun 2008
Doesn't always flow perfectly, but that is because it is very dense and well written.
Reading it is not effortless, but well worth it

Heavy weather, 04 May 2008
I expected much from this book, particularly given the glowing praise blazoned on its back cover. Oh dear!
Despite (or because) it is so heavily referenced -a commendable sign of scholarly groundwork- ultimately Paxman has achieved little more than to string together a mass of quotations, references and extracts in a singularly meandering and confusing stream of consciousness.
As for humour, I am an ordinary middle-of-the-road Englishman from a less privileged background than Jeremy. And I didn't laugh. Not once.
Sadly, the self-indulgent Paxman demonstrates neither the warm sense of joy nor common touch of the much more grounded, observant and incisively witty Bryson.


A lengthy telling of facts that does not enlighten., 30 Jul 2008
I was very disappointed by this book. I had expected a detective story, like the sub-title, and I had expected to get a wider understanding of the topic. With the mention of DNA analysis on the cover, I had expected to get some science, hopefully like Brian Sykes' very readable informative books.

This is not what happens. The author does not _show_ the reader, the author _tells_ the reader, at great length, many many many historical facts. If you are very interested in this part of ancient history and like having a great many facts recited at you, then maybe you will enjoy this book. The facts may well be true but they are not woven into a story and as the reader you don't get to see _why_ these facts are true. For example, why did such-and-such a gene originate in this area and then spread to that area, how do we know it wasn't the other way round? The book doesn't say, it just pompously tells you. And that's just one of the few dozen facts on that page.

Like one of the other reviewers said,

AVOID.

(makes mental note to self to read the Amazon reviews more thoroughly in future before buying books)

Disagree !, 13 Jul 2008
Unlike several of the reviewers, I have found this work very readable, and well presented. I was totally captivated.
Dr. Stephen Oppenheimer by his own admission is not by background an expert in linguistics, archaeology or history. But he is an expert in genetics who has been exasperated at the entrenched dogma in these disciplines, and has extended his research into these areas.
His results are plausible, very lucidly prfesented and a benchmark.
A great read, and very thought provocing !

An in depth re-analyis of 200 years of misinformation on English British roots., 13 Apr 2008
Oppenheimer gives a very convincing new look at pre-Roman Britain. Gone is the simplistic idea of an entirely Celtic people from John O Groats to Kent as perpetuated by the mis-understanding of Bede as propagated since the 1700s. In comes the far more likely idea of several cultures and languages occupying these shores including pre-English and probably pre-Indo-European peoples. With regard to the doubters I would say they doth protest too much. Oppenheimer destroys the idea of an Anglo Saxon genocide of a mythical Celtic England using DNA. He then points out that English has almost no Celt in it and yet is full of Latin. That entirely fits the idea of an already existing pre-English language adopting the words of the Superstrate language of Latin during Roman times. Traditionalists would have us believe that all latin came into English during Norman times. Certainly the Anglo Saxons were invited over to England, but as allies of their kin Vortigern, who was not a Celtic traitor as the Welsh Gildas would have us believe, but was himself Germanic with a latinised name.

The book backs up many ideas which have already been covered by Theo Venneman who believes English to be far older than Roman Britain, and by Colin Renfrew who moved away from the old school idea of all language being carried merely by conquest.

Celtic confusions, 10 Apr 2008
While we in North America have a distressing tendency to lump most of the inhabitants of the British Isles together, those living there are aware of their diversity. That awareness has been carried rather to extremes by some scholars and politicians. "What is a Celt?" has been a key question, as has been its follow-up "What really happened to the Celts?" Tied in with these queries is the problem of finding an origin for the Celts and just what language they spoke. Stephen Oppenheimer addresses these and related issues in a comprehensive "detective story" incorporating history, analytical genetics and linguistic studies. His conclusions, well depicted in this provocative study, will prove surprising to some, and perhaps distressing to a few.

The British Isles, he begins, have the advantage of being invaders of a "terra nullius" [uninhabited land] some fifteen thousand years ago. As the Last Glacial Maximum retreated before the rise of a revived warm period, humans were able to enter a land they'd been driven from thousands of years previously. While this situation offers nothing to the historian, archaeologists and geneticists have a clear starting point for placing and dating the migration. Not an island then, Britain was a peninsula jutting out from the European land mass. That provided an easy route from the Mediterranean shoreline, around what is now Iberia to the southern and western coasts of Britain. Since "western" here now means Eire, it's clear the first adjustment of opinion must accommodate Ireland and Britain. Clearly, there were later population movements, but where did they originate, how long did they last and what numbers of people were involved? Most significantly, what languages did they speak?

From his introductory survey, Oppenheimer proceeds to tease out the answers to these questions. The origins are traced back in time using genetic markers. Mitochondrial DNA, carried down the generations only through female inheritance factors provides one scenario. The Y chromosome, the genetic marker for men is analysed separately, then compared. In most, although not all cases, the matches are mutually supportive. Archaeological finds are used as further indicators which have the advantage of solid dating techniques to support them, unlike the DNA tests which rest on a calculation based on presumed mutation rates. The language question remains contentious. Oppenheimer links it with the spread of farming entering Europe from Anatolia introducing early forms of Celtic into Western Europe. The author's genetic analysis also overturns the idea that farmers "displaced" earlier hunter-gatherer societies in Europe and Britain. Instead, farming was adapted by the resident population and farmers' larger families added some population pressure, but hardly "displacement". The same holds true for the Roman occupation, which was more interested in social stability and tax collecting than genocide.

The post-Roman era has also led to the establishment of displacement myths and their more recent overturning. History, partly thanks to reliance on "Saint" Gildas, has stoked the fires of national sentiments by depicting the Angles and Saxons as a barbarian horde bent on ethnic cleansing of the indigenous "Celtic" peoples. Oppenheimer rejects this tradition, arguing instead that a "warrior elite" may have entered Britain, but this was a small population and a continuation of British-Continental ties in any case. Just who those "barbarians" were is problematic in any case, since the author sees ongoing contact with the Frisian and near shore of Europe rather than a conquering horde emerging from northern Germany. It is now generally accepted that the Norman "Conquest" was only slightly more intrusive than the Roman one, with an elite doing the ruling and the long-lasting indigenous population doing everything else like farming, herding and trading.

A major issue here is language. Linguists, Oppenheimer argues have been keen to avoid dating of language branching, mostly because early attempts came to grief. He goes so far as to separate "Celtic" populations from "celtic" languages. Part of the reason for this is the lack of a written base of celtic to use as a foundation. The Classical Period commentators in Greece and Rome wrote of "Celts" in a vague sort of way, and even a man on the ground, Julius Caesar was unable to make definitive comments about either the people or their languages. More precise cultural details were omitted entirely. Oppenheimer's path through the language issues is inevitably a tortured one, but he makes a serious effort at simplification. Whatever his success is due to a paucity of real data. For him, the genes speak louder than words. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Next time Stephen, check the text for errors before sending it to the publisher!, 20 Feb 2008
Stephen Oppenheimer should be ashamed of himself. There's interesting stuff trying to escape from his impossibly all-over-the-place, convoluted drafting, but I'm really looking forward to someone else writing a decent book on the subject.

Not least, the second of the three sections is an appalling mess. Where I used to work, if you'd sent out even the most initial, first, provisional draft to a close colleague in this state (repeated or near repeated paragraphs only a page or two apart, mis-labelled diagrams, etc) you'd have been taken out and shot. It isn't just that this middle section hasn't been proof read, the author doesn't appear to have done the barest minimum of reading it down for mistakes.

If I didn't know better, I'd think three sections had been written by different authors!

I also found myself thinking quite a bit about the tiny sample sizes.

That said, I am pretty much convinced by his central argument. However, it's more a matter of applying a bit of common sense to the random splatter of facts and quotes rather than as a result of persuasive, CLEAR argument on Oppenheimer's part. For goodness sake, the next time you set pen to paper, READ IT DOWN before publishing it!

Curate's Egg, 28 Dec 2008
Despite the celebrity reviews I found the text on the science of the story of human life in Britain rather thin. Of the 142 pages of the book just over 100 are on peripherals - 34 pages of a potted history of what mistakes people made in the 19th & 20th centuries (Piltdown again!), 14 pages on a very superficial review of what drives ice ages, 27 pages (!!!) of apologia on climate change and how we all have to try harder and 28 pages of thoughts from the team - so not much left to cover the meat of the subject. It is a pity as I think AHOB have a lot to offer and I would have liked to have read much more about their work and results.

What happened at the end?, 21 Dec 2008
I was very happy with the Homo Britannicus until the final chapter. All of a sudden, it stops being about prehistory and becomes yet another tiresome rant about global warming. If I wanted to be hectored about the evils of coal then I'd be reading Jonathon Porritt, George Monbiot or any other colossally wealthy enviromentalist.

If Chris Stringer wanted to write about the environment, then where are the dendrochronoligical discussions in his book, talking about the wholesale deforestation of Britain during the Neolithic and early Bronze ages? What about megafaunal extinction? Why skip 6,000 years?

Whilst the rest of the book is good, the last chapter sours the whole experience.

AHOB advances an alert, 04 Jan 2008
For a good many schoolchildren [too many, IMV], the history of Britain begins with Julius Caesar crossing the Channel. Confronted by resistance by the "blue people", he forcefully pushed the Island Kingdom into the historical arena. This outlook is regrettably shortsighted, as Chris Stringer makes vividly clear in this stunning account of pre-historic Britain. Although the first early human finds didn't occur there, the concept of "Stone Age" was vigorously debated in Britain as the artefacts and fossils emerged in view, particularly in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Moreover, it was British scholars like John Hutton and Charles Lyell who took the lead in extending the age of the Earth. That extension led to speculation and investigation of who and what had come before, demolishing the view of yet another Englishman, James Ussher who had postulated an Earth "created" in October of 4004 BCE. In short, stratigraphy began replacing Scripture.

Stringer explains how Britain was subjected to several "invasions" long before the Roman political martyr was glorified, then assassinated. These invasions weren't for booty or slaves, but for dinner. Changes in climate resulted in changes in sea level, with Britain forming a peninsula of Europe many times over the millennia. Another result of climate led to large parts of that peninsula being sheathed in ice, rendering it uninhabitable to human or other invaders. They made it, finally, with the first human artefacts being dated at 700 000 years ago. They weren't dining on mutton, however. It was deer, rabbits, and astonishingly, hippopotamus. The image Stringer offers of hippos crossing the Mediterranean and swimming along the Atlantic littoral to reach what is now Suffolk, isn't one easily dismissed from memory. They thrived in "Britain", along with wolves, lions and other tropical animals. And they were hunted by the humans who had followed them from Africa - albeit by a different route. Until the cold returned. Then it was reindeer, woolly mammoth and fur-bearing rhinos. As the ice advanced, such species, along with their hunters, vanished from the landscape.

These cycles of habitability over the British Peninsula have occurred several times just in the period of human occupation. The worst ice age there was 450 000 years ago, and it was severe enough to keep the peninsula free of humans for 50 thousand years after its retreat. After a temperate period allowing new settlement, humans were again pushed into Europe only twenty thousand years later. Other shifts led to inexplicable vacating by humans for a lengthy period, even though life abounded in Europe. Neanderthal arrived about 60 thousand years ago. A large-brained species, they worked out how to keep warm by burning bones in their hearths. The accumulation of fossil evidence, subject to close analysis and dating techniques, is providing an entirely new story of early human habitation in Northwest Europe. Mobility was a major factor - it's almost presumptuous to title this book "Homo Britannicus".

As a founder of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain [AHOB] research project, Chris Stringer is at once one of the driving forces and spokesmen of studies of the distant human past. For a time, it seemed this span reached back half a million years, but a recent underwater find at Pakefield pushed the earliest date back another 200 millennia. Stringer handles such challenges with ease. He's able to convey to the reader immense time leaps, yet apparently not leaving any gaps in the narrative. The information about palaeoclimates, changes in the British - European shoreline are well explained and supported by excellent maps depicting the era under discussion. How long have we known that the Thames was once a tributary of the Rhine? There are photographs - some portentous - about the conditions in Britain over time. One of the photos shows the edge of a village which will soon drop into the sea as a new climatic event - this one human enhanced - brings the sea ever further inland. The message is clear - climate has cleared humans from Britain or encouraged their settlement more than once. What does today's climate change portend for the British Isles - and for the rest of us? [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Not an easy read but worth it, 04 Dec 2007
Buy this in hardcover, the paperback (which i ordered by mistake) is too small and the pictures are rubbish. Its not exactly good reading, I personally dont like his writing style- bit erratic and jumpy, but the book is definately worth persevering with if you want the most up to date work in this field- and Chris Stringer is most definately the major star in this field at the moment (i exclude a big bunch of frankly loony Americans and the equally looney but eminantly loveable Francis Prior) Its all a bit BRITAIN orientated, which seeing as we were just a peninsular of europe for most of our history is a tad weird, why set boundaries anachronistically?? It passed the test though- I put it down and wanted more, which is all i can ask really.

Enjoyable but Slight, 22 Nov 2007
Over the last half-million years, the climate of Britain has swung back and forth many times between ice ages and warmer, lusher inter-glacial periods. During several periods of warmer climate, early humans came and settled here, but when the ice returned they either died out or were driven out. The story of early humans in Britain is one of repeated re-colonisation. Miraculously, these early occupations have left traces that can still be found, almost all of them in the south-east of England - traces further north and west having been erased by the ice sheets. This amazing fact illuminates the whole of this little book.

This story, though, is only the intersection of two much bigger stories. The first is the shaping of our landscape through the ice ages, itself only the last chapter of a much longer story. The second is the development and spread of early humans, first in Africa, and then later on in Europe. Investigation of sites of human occupation in Britain has contributed to both of these, but in both cases the evidence from British sites has to be examined along with evidence from many other places. As a result, the chronological chapters which form the best part of this book have to cram in a lot of background information in a short space - about the succession of small mammal species, for example, or physical methods of dating sites. It's an enjoyable read, but it left me wanting more information about almost everything. The strict chronological format makes for a repetitious feeling - here come those voles again! Is it the publisher who assumed that a British book-buying public only wants to read about Britain, and isn't interested in a wider European story? If so, they are wrong, at least as far as this reader is concerned. The only way to make sense of a 200,000-year-old site in Britain is to place it in the context of sites of similar ages in other countries. This must surely be routine for professional archaeologists, so why do they think the rest of us aren't interested too?

These chapters make up a great half of a book, but the rest of it is much weaker. The historical introduction covers well-known ground, and could have been omitted. The chapter on global warming makes some good points, but it's too much for such a small book. The subject is fascinating, but does it have to be presented at a level suitable for a TV documentary? It could have done so much more, without putting people off.


Somewhat confused, 16 Oct 2004
First the good points. Jared Diamond writes excellently and makes some very good arguments, his humanity and morality is evident throughout the book. The later part of the book, which highlights many of the modern worlds more repugnant acts (especially on genocide) is a masterpiece in the critique of human barbarity and it's attempted justifications. Though there is no criticism of Israel's 'ethnic cleansing', which is a bit of a disappointment. Now for the criticism. Jared Diamond seems to have at best a rudimentary understanding of evolution and natural selection, and some of his statements don't stand up to even the most cursory reflection. For example he states 'The winner takes the losers land, sometimes also the losers women, and thus the loser's opportunity to perpetuate genes'. This seems to be a very male centered way to look at the facts (a common mistake throughout the book). It evident on even a moments reflection that the women so enslaved are the mothers, sisters and daughters of the loser and therefore carry the same genes. Again on convergent evolution (and the possibility of extra-terrestrial life) 'radio communication is one of those things that happens to have evolved here..'. When did radio communication evolve? It was discovered and developed through scientific experimentation but it hasn't evolved, not ever. Another inaccuracy is the statement 'Since evolutionary multiplications of species are very slow, natural extinctions must also be slow'. Jared Diamond seems to have an antiquated Neo-Darwinian view of evolution which doesn't stand up to the actual observations in the fossil record. He states that mass extinctions are rare events, but this is simply not true, there have been many mass extinctions, which are amply recorded in the fossil record. Mass extinctions occur when the environment changes dramatically and quickly, this has occurred many times. Ecological niches in those conditions remain open, and are usually filled very quickly by pre-adapted organisms (ie those which, by accident can survive the change in environment), which also very quickly adapt, through natural selection to their 'new' niche. These are well developed arguments first proposed by Niles Eldrige and Stephen Gould, which fit the observed fossil record perfectly. An adequate understanding of the theory of punctuated equilibrium is required for anyone who wants to venture into the world of evolution, and, unfortunately the very gifted and articulate Jared Diamond seems to score very poorly indeed.

Jared Diamond makes the cardinal sin of stating that 'the vulnerable species get eliminated quickly, and what we see persisting in nature are the robust combinations of species' this statement to me is arrant nonsense. During a dramatic change in environment, for example when Humans first colonised New Zealand, was it the robust species that survived? Well it depends how you define robust. Those species best adapted to life without human predators (ie the most robust in the original environment) weren't necessarily the same ones that were the 'most robust' after Human colonisation, the goalposts had been moved. This is the case with all mass extinctions. S those which were most robust after the colonisation had a pre-adaptive advantage (avoiding humans). But there was absolutely no way of any species 'deciding' to evolve 'avoidance of humans' just in case humans decided to come (none of the species knew of the existence of humans). This is the classic definition of pre-adaptation. It's the survival of the luckiest not survival of the fittest. It's the same with dinosaurs, they were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for well over 100 million years, far longer than mammals (which were around at the time of the dinosaurs) have been the dominant terrestrial vertebrates. So did they suddenly realize 'hey guys mammals are superior lets all die'. No some cataclysmic event (for the dinosaurs, anyway) occurred. Mammals were lucky enough to survive and then through selection occupied the niches vacated by the extinct dinosaurs. If that dramatic extinction) event had not occurred then there is no doubt that dinosaurs would still rule the world and mammals would still be the 'loser vertebrate. There's an old fashioned 'Victorian era' view of evolution as being 'progressive' which is just plain wrong (Jared Diamond falls into the trap when he infers that natural selection is the sole force behind evolution (ie speciation), but it is accepted that natural selection and at least one other force must be behind speciation events), in truth selection is adaptive, and only leads to speciation or evolution during special periods (like just after extinctions). The upshot is that during periods of equilibrium (ie no dramatic environmental catastrophes) then natural selection acts to keep species as they already are, that is already well adapted to their environment.

There are some other poorly argued points in the book. Jared Diamond correctly states that we should not look for 'evolutionary'- (whatever that's supposed to mean) reasons for all our behavioural of physical characteristics, but then goes on to do just that. He looks for selective reasons for all sorts of things, without ever explaining the genetic basis of pleiotropy, which is the fact that one gene can have two or even more effects. That is that a gene can exist for a given reason, but may manifest itself in another, apparently totally unrelated way. So people may have a characteristic for one reason, but be looking for the selective reason for a totally unrelated characteristic that the same gene confers upon us. Getting back to the male centered view of the book, he spends some time on the fact that human males have inordinately (relatively speaking) large penises compared to other apes. He concludes that it's for 'display purposes'!!!!! So it couldn't be due to the fact that human women may have selected for them because that way they have more fun then? Or that there seems to be 'no selective reason' for female infidelity (but plenty for men). So can't women have chosen one male as a 'rearer' and another as a 'donator of genes'. None of these not unreasonable explanations seem to have occurred to the 'male centered' Jared Diamond.

All these criticisms aside it's still a well written book with lots of humanity and much truth, It's only the selection/evolution bit's which lack any coherence.

A book to read to change your view of the world !, 26 Aug 2003
A book to recommend everyone who would like to know their place in the animal kingdom. There is only 2% difference between the chimpanzee, man's closest relative and us. Jared Diamond tries and largely succeeds in explaining this difference using science and philosophy and just plain logic.

Please read this book, it will help explain a lot about Man, his sexuality, his destructive properties, his creativity and the reasons why he has reached this point in evolution. He discusses adultery, the origin of art, the importance of language, addiction, genocide, the start of agriculture, the great leap forward when Man started to make a significant impact on planet earth and many other useful side topics. He gives us another definition of history. He makes us stand back from our everyday existence and see ourselves as perhaps we really are.

If you have an open mind and want to read a different viewpoint, read this book !

The best I found so far, 01 Jul 2003
All my life I have been curious about the world around me and what makes it tick. Evolution being one of the most important aspects of our learning about the nature, I've read a bit on the topic over the years. Now I am not a biologist, but I am a scientist and I can definitely tell when somebody is pulling things out of thin air just because they need to support a preconcieved picture. Most of the books I've read on the subject have been full of this (most notably Wright's The Moral Animal, whose author clearly lacks elementary scientific etics).
It is therefore with great pleasure that I can recommend Mr. Diamond's book as the first social evolution book that stood up to my requirements on intellectual honesty. Indeed, many of the claims from earlier books by social evolutionists, that I found rather wild and unsubstantiated, do not appear here and some are even refuted by Mr. Diamond as errors. As he did with his Guns, Germs and Steel, he pulls together strands from many branches of science to create a rich picture of human past, a picture which is reasonably well documented given how little we really do know and which fits together well. I found this book also better written and better ballanced than the Guns,..., which suffered from excessive political correctness that sometimes clouded the author's judgement. Here he almost avoided political correctness-related spins, and on the few occassions he did he made it clear that he does not take it too seriously, which just ties in with the overall honesty and precision of his exposition.
I enjoyed reading the book very much. It is very well written, often you even do not realize that you are learning new things and there are some genuinely funny places, too. I would recommend it as the first book to look at if you are interested in evolution of the human race.

Essential reading., 29 Nov 2000
I would rate this book, along with Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker, as one of the most important and powerful books I've ever read. Furthermore, these two books complement each other beautifully. Diamond seems to pitch perfectly to all audiences, (I studied a biological degree, and the book has passed among many of my non-scientist friends who all claimed to have recommended it to others,) and ranges widely, (through biology, evolution & ecology, paleontology, history, sociology, and linguistics.) The whole is an unfeasibly lucid and educative rationale as to how mankind arrived to be where he was in 1991, and where he was likely to be headed. As with Dawkins, the going is rarely heavy and every page brings a satisfying feeling of having learnt something new. Sometimes uncomfortable, often funny, rarely overbearing. PLEASE read this book. Then read it to others, and recommend as widely as possible!

Excellent and highly readable book, 26 Oct 1998
Great book. Each chapter examines a different question relating to humanity e.g. Why did Neanderthal man die out?, How / where did language come from etc. Very readable and enjoyable this book is written in a chatty style and is full of interesting facts which will amaze your friends....did you know that a chimp is closer related to a human that a rat is to a mouse !!!!