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| An Utterly Impartial History of Britain: (or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge) | 
enlarge | Author: John O'farrell Publisher: Black Swan Category: Book
List Price: £7.99 Buy Used: £1.71 You Save: £6.28 (79%)
New (37) from £3.75
Avg. Customer Rating: 43 reviews Sales Rank: 130
Media: Paperback Pages: 592 Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9 Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1.6
ISBN: 0552773964 EAN: 9780552773966 ASIN: 0552773964
Publication Date: May 5, 2008 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
It's not often I give a book up after reading 50 pages...... October 24, 2008 3 out of 5 found this review helpful
..... but I did with this one. I bought it because a friend said it was hilarious. I found it really irritating having some reasonable historic insight interspersed with purile humour, mostly revolving around repeated incarnations of essentially the same joke. It just goes to show that different people find different things funny! I hope someone who likes this sort of humour bought it from the Oxfam shop where I sent my copy.
Not only a fantastic read - but inspiring to!!! October 19, 2008 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
When I first started to read this book I momentarily wondered if I was going to cope with the mix of humour and history. I needn't have worried. As I began to get into the ebb and flow of the book I thoroughly enjoyed the light hearted but at the same time educational stroll through most of the major historical events of Great Britain. Not only did I thoroughly enjoy the read; I laughed out loud more than once. More than that though the book left me inspired and thirsty to read more history! What more can you ask of a book. Throughly recommended...
Best history book since - well ever ? October 14, 2008 0 out of 2 found this review helpful
A must read - satirical, current and yet also educational.
Perhaps a bit on the long side, but otherwise perfect
On here to buy another book by this author
Entertaining and informative October 7, 2008 1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed this book . Obviously you can't expect to have a very detailed account of 2000 years of history in just over 500 pages, but I found it informative in that there were a lot of things I didn't know. OK, perhaps some of them weren't really worth knowing, and maybe the historica acuracy was questionable in places, but as a light-hearted 'potted history' I thought it worked well. Humour is very subjective and I see that several reviewers of this book didn't think it was at all funny, but I was quite amused and after I'd read out several 'funny bits' to my husband he decided he had to read it for himself. He wasn't as enthusiastic as me as he prefers more heavyweight reading, but I really enjoyed it. As someone else has said, history books can be very dry and boring and this was a refreshing change.
Not as funny as it thinks it is... September 21, 2008 4 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book is not as funny as it thinks it is. In the preface the author claims it is very different from the classic 1066 and All That. I would agree. That one was funny and just the right length. This I found too long. About two thirds of the way through it was becoming a real slog. Yes, there were parts that made me snort with laughter, but by and large it was a bit tedious and I really had to dig in deep to force myself to finish it.
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