A History of Britain (again)
Feb. 24th, 2005 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinI've just finished listening to the audio versions of the first two volumes of A History of Britain. They are much more comprehensive, and inclusive of Irish and Scottish history, than the TV series - which, in light of this editing, ought to be called A History of Britain (Abridged).
It would do well to remind North Americans that this very condensed skimming of history is still enough to fill fifteen hours of quality entertainment.
I repeat: fifteen hours. I don't know if I really made the point there. Fifteen very densely packed hours. And that's with 3000 B.C.- 1065 AD all covered in one. So... it's 1066 to sort of roughly about 1965 (the death of Winston Churchill) in fourteen hours. Hmm, but then 1066 gets its own episode... so 1067 to 1965 in thirteen hours makes it roughly 69 years per hour.
To compare: let's suppose American history starts with 1607, the founding of Jamestown. Being fair and ending it at 1965 as well, that gives us 358 years. 358 years in fifteen episodes gives us 23.8 years per hour. To be generous, we could go back to 1492 (Columbus's first voyage, for those who may not know this), which gives us 473 years. We should give one episode to discussing the Pre-Columbian Inhabitants of North America, whose diversity and number might create just barely enough content to fill as much as the episode that somehow fits in the original Britons, the Celts, the Romans, AND the Anglo-Saxons, two of the four leaving extensive written records...
Aah, forget it. It's too late for this. Good night.
It would do well to remind North Americans that this very condensed skimming of history is still enough to fill fifteen hours of quality entertainment.
I repeat: fifteen hours. I don't know if I really made the point there. Fifteen very densely packed hours. And that's with 3000 B.C.- 1065 AD all covered in one. So... it's 1066 to sort of roughly about 1965 (the death of Winston Churchill) in fourteen hours. Hmm, but then 1066 gets its own episode... so 1067 to 1965 in thirteen hours makes it roughly 69 years per hour.
To compare: let's suppose American history starts with 1607, the founding of Jamestown. Being fair and ending it at 1965 as well, that gives us 358 years. 358 years in fifteen episodes gives us 23.8 years per hour. To be generous, we could go back to 1492 (Columbus's first voyage, for those who may not know this), which gives us 473 years. We should give one episode to discussing the Pre-Columbian Inhabitants of North America, whose diversity and number might create just barely enough content to fill as much as the episode that somehow fits in the original Britons, the Celts, the Romans, AND the Anglo-Saxons, two of the four leaving extensive written records...
Aah, forget it. It's too late for this. Good night.
