This Little Britain

-How One Small Country Built the Modern World-

By Harry Bingham – A book Review

This read is a must for all Brits, and if you are naturally curious about the behavior, both past and present, of your global neighbors, then it’s a must for you too.

Harry Bingham is an accomplished author and writer of famed novels such as, Lieutenant’s Lover, Glory Boys and others.

Harry, in this, his first non-fiction write, demonstrates a truly unique skill in assembling historical facts about Great Britain over the last couple of centuries and making them read like a humorous novel, whilst never losing their stated significance in making Britain great.

Harry reveals facts about Britain that you never knew about and how these facts impacted on the known world and all of our lifestyles today.

They cover issues like: language, literature, law, warfare, science, economy, the greatest empire the world has ever known, sport……the list goes on.

The read is effortless and you are guaranteed to finish reading the three hundred and fifty pages in no time at all.

After reading This Little Britain, you will have bags of, “Did You Know?” titbits to share with friends at your next dinner party, or on the 19^th hole, after a tough round of golf.

My favourite ‘Did you Know?’ in this case is the chapter headed, “ Clouds of Feculence”.

Harry reveals that in 1848/9, cholera killed over 14,000 people in London alone. Previously the disease had been unknown in Britain. Life expectancy in Britain was running at about thirty years of age! There were many other diseases that killed, children in particular; scarlet fever, measles, whooping cough and so on.

With the advancement of medical science and people like Pasteur and Koch, for the first time in England progress was made toward healing these killer diseases. Slowly the life expectancy rate increased.

However, whilst the diseases were healed by medicine, their containment was achieved by a Victorian Engineer, Joseph Bazalgette, who was responsible for removing the real killer – contaminated water!

Okay, that’s enough, from my side ‘gaanen’ (Londoner’s English for ‘go on then’), buy the book

This Little Britain

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