Fake History: Ten Great Lies and How They Shaped the World

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I regard the improvement of the condition of the British people as the main aim of modern government” The grandly described Prologue is funny, albeit unintentionally. Its like a cross between Monty Python, and a 14 year old trying to copy Orwell. Although his snobbish contempt for his grandparents would embarrass the adolescent Pip from Great Expectations. Where as Andrew Scot is a full grown man (hes writing this under a fake name by the way. Who knows why? Your guess is as good as mine).

English characterizes Churchill as a consistent supporter of wanton imperial violence. He can only sustain this claim by ignoring anything that contradicts it. Thus, English mentions that Churchill was involved in the one-sided British victory at Omdurman, but neglects to mention that Churchill criticized the British treatment of enemy wounded. He mentions that Churchill said that the colonization of Australia and America was not in itself a “wrong” but ignores that Churchill opposed imperial atrocities such as the brutal suppression of the Bambatha Rebellion, or punitive expeditions in Nigeria, or the Amritsar massacre. Incidentally Churchill wasn’t “defending the suppression of Aborigines” when he made that infamous remark – he was refuting an argument against Jewish emigration to Palestine. Had Churchill been listened to, more Jewish people would have survived the Holocaust. It is also fanciful to suggest that a majority of white Americans or Australians in the 1930s would have disagreed with Churchill’s view. The Crisis in British Journalism Byline Times investigates media monopolies, their proximity to politicians, and how the punditocracy doesn’t hold power to account I haven’t read Otto English’s book, and am not likely too, if it’s anything like as bad as Sandbrook says it is. Whether it's virtuous leaders in just wars, martyrs sacrificing all for a cause, or innovators changing the world for the better, down the centuries supposedly great men and women have risen to become household names, saints and heroes. But just how deserving are they of their reputations?Let's get the problems out of the way first: this is a really inadequately edited book. There are numerous typos and other errors scattered throughout it, which no publishing house worth its salt should have let through. The writing is uneven at times and seems almost as if it was rushed, while the narrative is also fascinating in places. The overall premise of the book, however, is difficult to argue with, that "History, much like modern life, is in short full of bullies, self-promoting charlatans, bigots, bastards, and liars." Another way of putting it is that "the person who shouts the loudest gets all the acclaim," which is mentioned by way of explaining why Thomas Edison is widely regarded as the inventor of the light bulb, when it's not really that simple. That said, despite the moments of personal bias, I felt it worked well overall - especially since the subject itself encourages readers to do their own thinking and their own research to counteract it. There is a lot of value in Fake History: Ten Great Lies and How They Shaped the World, and the chapters on family stories and the ultimate conclusion of the book were where it really shone. English cunningly sets the whole book up to showcase the bias that each of us holds. Is there really a difference between the giant statue of a golden dog unveiled in Turkmenistan, and Britain's own statue of Petra, the Blue Peter dog in Manchester? What we perceive as foolish and grandiose in the context of other countries somehow become accepted and normalised in our own. This was a lesson sorely needed, and one that English spends his entire book setting up. I guess the complexity comes from the fact that there is no bright-line between opinion and fact. To say that the middle ages were a benighted era of superstition has some basis in fact and is an opinion that can be held with the historical record. To say that medieval thinkers thought the world was flat can easily be disproven with a visit to Hereford cathedral to see the Mappa Mundi with one’s own eyes. Unfortunately, such cognitive bias doesn’t always end well. For instance, the Dunning-Kruger effect, when people with limited knowledge think they’re expert in something they don’t really understand.

Lejön az egészről, hogy a prioritás a szerző részéről saját indulata megélése volt. Aminek következtében szó sincs építkezésről. Pedig ha csak a fejezetcímeket nézzük, hihetnénk azt is, English egy ívet kíván létrehozni. Hisz azokban világosan meg van határozva egy állítás (pl.: "Régen az emberek azt hitték, a föld lapos"), amit a szerző bizonnyal cáfolni kíván, valamint ott az alcím is (pl. "A történelemhamisítás története"), ami mintha arra utalna, hogy egy általánosabb tematikus rendbe lesznek illesztve a fejtegetések. Aztán kiderül, hogy ilyen tematikus rend jószerével nem létezik, English csak csapong, össze-vissza hajigálja elénk mindazt a tudást, amit innen-onnan összecsipegetett, nem csoda, ha az ember egyes fejezetek végén őszintén elgondolkodik azon, hogy volt-e itt mondva valami érdemleges, vagy csak ventilált egy jóízűt az író saját magának. While those best examples, just named, were well equipped to survive the 1945 Marxist landslide to Westminster and its catastrophic consequences were specially bad for others which were not yet ready. I have tried to understand but as an engineer I like to observe curves and behaviour over time. This helps me understand what is really happening. I would look at Labour’s effects or deeds right from 1945 to date, even cases like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, they are consistent with if it works break it. This socialist party has been splitting everything from day one when it first got power. Overall, Fake History: Ten Great Lies and How They Shaped the World was an excellently researched and written work of non-fiction. Unfortunately, I feel the audiobook was not the best way to experience it. With that in mind I will talk about what I didn't like about the audiobook, but note that it didn't affect my rating of the book overall.This is a mixed bag that deconstructs "great lies" of history and attempts, with varying degrees of success, to find parallels with the current political reality. The brilliant chapters on the hyper-mythologised version of Winston Churchill and weaponising of WWI/WWII memory in modern Britain will resonate with any Brit who has had the misfortune to question Churchill's legacy or, heaven forbid, neglected to wear a paper flower. I even liked the chapter on the dubious origins of "curry." Today we have some from Labour trying to break off part of the North of England and London from England The only way to stop immigration is to restore the Empires and their successful colonies, without sovereignty and giving shed loads of foreign aid will never do that, these Labour Refugee Manufacturing Plants will never change, to the contrary the corrupt regimes left behind by the Marxists will make the corrupt even happier (Note that the Marxists didn’t decolonize the Marxist Empires, only the Western ones, yet now they are trying to destroy us totally from inside criticizing us viciously and ignoring what really goes on TODAY in their Marxist Empires in expansion which is far worse than anything they try to accuse us of: slavery, harvesting of people for their organs etc.). I felt that this book didn’t quite meet my expectations, but I still got much out of it. To that extent I will give the sequel “Fake Heroes” a go. Not in the least that, to my regret, I was once a Che Guevara fanboy. Much has changed since then. BOOK REVIEW: Tearing down myths white men tell other white men". BusinessLIVE . Retrieved 27 December 2021.