Rating: 
Summary: a wonderfully light read
Review: A wonderfully light read, Paxman's English flies by through an admixture of fact and anecdote. If you are looking to enjoy a study of the English people, perhaps as you contemplate travelling to England, this book could be of use. The book flies by and retains substance at the same time. You will find yourself reading a hundred pages in a day. Trualy an English stylist.
Rating: 
Summary: Intelligent and witty, but still only one mans opinion
Review: As a reader it is easy to approach this book with the wrong expectations. This is Jeremy Paxman's assessment of what made the English what they were at the height of Empire. It records how the English have changed since those days, touches on who the English are now and barely hints at who the English will become. Paxman bases his assessment of his own experience and a few hundred interviews with notable English people over the course of a couple of years. Paxman is intelligent and witty, he hits many English archetypes squarely on the head. The book is organized into chapters that each deal with either different aspects of Englishness or different historic influences on the English. For example he has an interesting chapter on the Church of England and an excellent section on the very English tradition of public affray and rioting. ... He underestimates the importance of class to the English experience. It was only after I had lived in the US for 4 years that I actually realized the English class system still exists. This system is so ingrained in English society that it is almost transparent to people who live there. Paxman claims it is dying and a meritocracy is replacing it. I believe the reports of it's death are greatly exaggerated. Paxman also fails to address the experience of the English working class and their influence on the nature of Englishness. They still exist but you wouldn't know it from reading this book! Paxman almost completely neglects the strong regionalism of the UK. There are two types of English, those who live in the South East and speak "Estuary English" and those who don't. This book is mostly a description of those that live in the South East. Those who don't are divided into many regional varieties. These regions are usually based around large cities and ports like Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield and Bristol but they can also be based on counties and regions like Northumberland. Yorkshire, Cornwall and the West country. These areas are fiercely proud of their heritage and don't care much for the opinions of "effete southerners" or "Londoners". Conversely those in the South East consider the rest of the country to be rather backward, if they ever bother to think of them at all. For example, Paxman's claim that the English never developed a sense of civic pride only proves he has never spent any time in Nottingham, where the local radio recently had a hard time finding anyone who would disagree with the statement "Nottingham is the best place to live in England!". Which of course it is!
Rating: 
Summary: Very entertaining and enlightening
Review: As a US ex-pat who has lived in Britain for 11 years, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Yes, it is a highly personal and opinionated book, but who wants to read a list of statistics? Besides, it's what Mr Paxman does best. It shows another endearing characteristic of the English - the tendency to declaim on anything without worrying about whether they actually know much about it and often being very entertaining while doing it. The book is chiding without being churlish, funny without being farcical, and at times downright affectionate. It does get slightly repetitive and rambling, but I highly recommend it. It is a great conversation starter and at times made me laugh out loud. Oh - and also - the "curiously English geek quiz show, University Challenge" actually started in the US as College Bowl before coming to the UK. But it is indeed far more popular here than it was there. Does this say something else about the English perhaps?
Rating:
Summary: Spot On
Review: As an American, I probably shouldn't be commenting on this book, but having lived in England for the past 5 years, I know that when a bunch of English write in to [negitivly review] a book about the English, it's probably because the book hits too close to home. To be fair, the book is really about previous generations of English (especially those who lived through the Empire and WWII) and scarcely applies to the current generation (who could hardly be accused of being uninterested in sex, for example). The book is far less cliche-ridden than Bryson's Notes from a Small Island and much more positive than Theroux's Kingdom by the Sea. There are some truly interesting and obscure (to the non-English) discussions here, like those on English intellectuals and the Church of England. The chapter on Funny Foreigners is hilarious. All in all, I think this is a subject worth exploring - it does mean something to be English - and I think that Paxman has done a more thoughtful and thorough job than anyone else I've seen.
Rating:
Summary: A bit disappointing.
Review: As has been mentioned, Jeremy Paxman is an excellent interviewer. It was this fact which initially prompted my interest in this much publicized book. What diappointed me was the style and form of the book. There seemed to be whole chapters of dirrectionless anecdotes and self-contained units of ideas and theories with very little by way of overall argument or flow. That is not to say that the anecdotes and observational comments were not interesting in themsleves, often they were, but at the end of a chapter or at the end of the book I found myself asking - what was the point? I also found some of the turns of phrase awkward. Unlike a previous reviewer, much of the information contained in the book was new to me and I therefore found the book more interesting perhaps than those for whom it is simply a re-hash of what they already know. Because I found the book was informative to me, I give it three stars. I cannot give it more because, while I found many of the issues raised interesting and perceptively handled, it often lacked style and the form was such that the book did not inform the reader of the reason for or the general dirrection of the book. At the end I felt that, while the book had been interesting and entertaining, it had not really taken me anywhere.
Rating: 
Summary: Loss of empire, loss of empire, loss of empire, loss of.....
Review: Having ploughed my way through 70% of this ponderous tome, I simply had to give up. I was learning nothing new as one chapter dragged into another. Paxman (who is a superb television presenter) repeats over and over and over and over and.... ad infinitum, that the English have never got over loss of empire. Good! That should have taken one chapter at most. Though he occasionally breaks the monotony and tells the reader how (in his view) the English see themselves, he soon reverts back to loss of empire. Then he moves on to loss of empire! I'm uncertain what qualifications Paxman has to determine how the English see themselves. He, himself, is considered to be one of the elitist intelligentsia, so it's unlikely that he can conduct an accurate analysis of the fish and chip eating hoards who swarm to Costa del Plenty every summer. As one reviewer points out, the only real piece of information in this book that is worth anything is that Paxman points out the difference between an English person and a British person. I am Manx (from the Isle of Man) which makes me British but most definitely not English. Paxman correctly accededs that English people are so smug, they fail to notice this difference (or, if they are aware of it, they ignore it). For pointing that out, I award one star. For the rest? One more star for reminding me (in case I'd forgotten) that the English are suffering angst from loss of empire (at least I THINK that's what he said!)
Rating:
Summary: Well written, but not quite meaningful
Review: I'd never read anything by Paxman before, so like other reviewers, I wondered how academic this might be. In fact, contrary to the reviews on the flyleaf, I didn't find it as funny as they suggested it might be.
But I was not disappointed but delighted. I didn't want some flippant lightweight humourous prose, but I got a very well researched book with some funny bits.
I've recommended it to Americans who don't understand the English psyche.
Rating:
Summary: I'm English... I think...
Review: It's a kind of enigma really. Paxman writes a book about a people who, in his own words, don't really have any distinguishing features. Quite an accomplishment. That Paxman does it in an interesting and often witty way is something too.
But the language is often obscure. It's as if Paxman writes in order to demonstrate some new nugget of language he has found in the Oxford English Dictionary. I've been teaching English for 10 years and I'd never heard of some of the words he was using.
I've a feeling that this book will appeal little to people from the US in either style and content. If you are looking for a book that will introduce the English to you in a personable way you can relate to, get a copy of Bill Bryson's Notes from Small Island which will do it in a much nicer and far more approachable style.
If however, you are English yourself, you will find this book worth the read although if, like me, you find your national identity difficult to define, don't expect help here. In much the same way as Koreans describe themselves as "NOT Japanese" and the Japanese describe themselves as "NOT anyone else", Paxman tiptoes around the English to tell us how their neighbours are and how we aren't.
The result is a wonderfully ironic description very English in its understatement.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but idiosyncratic rant
Review: Jeremy Paxman is a well known media figure in Britain, hosting the BBC's flagship evening current affairs show and compering that curiously English geek quiz show, University Challenge. On University Challenge, by dint of having the answers written on a card in front of him, Paxman creates the illusion of his own omniscience while brutally deriding the hapless nerd who should, as a starter for ten, incorrectly conjugate an irregular latin verb. In the same spirit, he's dashed off this rangey discourse on the English. It's about as convincing; just as no-one thinks he really knows the answers on University Challenge all by himself, at no time reading this book are you fooled into thinking Paxman is any more expert a commentator on this fascinating subject than your average upper middle class English windbag. He covers his ground erratically - a discussion of English eating habits lurches suddenly into an exposition on football violence - and extremely subjectively - Paxman divines the attributes which he believes are generally attributed to the English character without reference to anything more solid than his own (decidely university-educated and middle-class) impression, and rounds out his overview with an unconvincing collection of anecdotes, which don't represent the overwhleming proof of the points that he thinks they do. Irritatingly, in his final summation, Paxman seems to invoke an image of the real England (as a sort of green and pleasant land) which he has spent most of his book undermining. Nor is the copy especially well written - occasionally, Paxman's syntax is just awful, and towards the end the sub-editor obviously wasn't paying much attention to cliches and repeated uses of the same expressions, sometimes within half a page or so of each other. Most people won't notice this, but it irritates the pants off me. For all this it's a pretty jolly, harmless rant, and quite easy to get through. But for real insight into national character I think it's always best to leave the analysis to an outsider. Interestingly, Paxman is dismissive of Bill Bryson, just such an author, who has done a similar job on this English, only with a lot more style. Methinks the lady doth protest too much?
Rating:
Summary: NOT A POMPOUS REVIEW
Review: So many pompous reviews of this book in Amazon I simply had to say something. This book is not intended to be a work of great erudite learning but simply an Englishman's view of his own people, albeit one from the middle calss inteligensia. I live in England but am Welsh, with a lot of Italian relations. I like and admire the English greatly; my kids were born here and they remind me that they can play rugby for Wales, soccer for Italy and cricket for England ! Thhis could be very tiring. There are many references to the Empire but lets be honest this generation thinks little of a concept that was never theirs in the first place. The empire is just history and we no longer sense its loss. The book is an enjoyable read, with many interesting and enlightening facts and points of view. Too many pages are devoted to the typical English middle class pursuits...but so what! It still strikes a chord. After spending quite a bit of time in Italy and witnessing the ways of the Italian male: with his lack of guts, scared of the world that doesnt involve home comforts, Italian food and his mother. In contrast the English have a lot to be proud about. If there was ever a war whose side would we be on? The English or the Italians? There's no contest. Paxman has written an insightful and thought provoking book. Well worth the read. One thing that should have been looked at in greater depth is the love of Curry and Indian food...it's a bleeding way of life mate!
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