How England Made The English: From Hedgerows To Heathrow

How England Made The English: From Hedgerows To Heathrow by Mount, Harry. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780670919130.

Harry Mounts How England Made the English: From Why We Drive on the Left to Why We Dont Talk to Our Neighbours is packed with astonishing facts and wonderful stories. Q. Why are English train seats so narrow? A. Its all the Romans fault. The first Victorian trains were built to the same width as horse-drawn wagons; and they were designed to fit the ruts left in the roads by Roman chariots. For readers of Paxmans The English, Brysons Notes on a Small Island and Foxs Watching the English, this intriguing and witty book explains how our national characteristics - our sense of humour, our hobbies, our favourite foods and our behaviour with the opposite sex - are all defined by our nations extraordinary geography, geology, climate and weather. You will learn how we would be as freezing cold as Siberia without the Gulf Stream; why we drive on the left-hand side of the road; why the Midlands became the home of the British curry. It identifies the materials that make England, too: the faint pink Aberdeen granite of kerbstones; that precise English mix of air temperature, smell and light that hits you the moment you touch down at Heathrow. Praise for Harry Mount: Highly readable, encyclopeadic, marvellous, illuminating. Mount portrays England via dextrous excavations of its geography, geology, history and weather Independent Fascinating. Mounts an intelligent, funny and always interesting companion Daily Mail Charming and nerdily fact-stuffed Guardian Harry Mount is the author of Amo, Amas, Amat and All That, his best-selling book on Latin, and A Lust for Window Sills - A Guide to British Buildings. A journalist for many newspapers and magazines, he has been a New York correspondent and a leader writer for the Daily Telegraph. He studied classics and history at Oxford, and architectural history at the Courtauld Institute. He lives in north London