Book description
Throughout history the English have been a warlike lot. Often we fight
among ourselves - there have been a good few civil wars - and when we
were not slaughtering each other, we practiced on our neighbours, the
Scots, the Irish, the French… When that got too easy, we set off around
the world to find other people to fight. This was usually done with a
hubris that invited some ludicrous pratfall. In The Beastly Battles of
Old England, Nigel Cawthorne takes us on a darkly humorous journey
through some of our ill-advised military actions. From the war over a
severed ear to a general seeking out his rival's mistresses to even the
score, it is a miscellany of insufferable arrogance, reckless gallantry,
stunning stupidity, massive misjudgements and general beastliness.
Nigel Cawthorne has been a writer for nearly 30 years, writing a number
of successful popular history books; Nigel Cawthorne lives in London.
