Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Critique Of John R Green's Book: "A Short History Of The English People"

Norseman, Roman, German, and French incursions imprinted the primitive Picts, Jutes, Anglia, and Celtic enclaves found in the Isles early history. Early Maps and Generational Tables reflect the ascent and decline of influence and dynastic successions. Indicatively, the names Great Britain and England find their nominative substance in Angevin territories bridging the channel, along with Brittany in Western France.


In 1008 pages, the author reveals a short history of the Anglo Saxon; revealingly, its introduction was written in 1888. With biographical assistance from eras much more ancient than Shakespeare, Chaucer, Homer, or even Ovid, Green chronicles those influences shaping the ethics, ethos, and law construct among English speaking peoples. With candor, he describes the cruelty, debauchery, and chicanery associated with Great Britain’s rise as a world leader; indeed, it was a reflection of mankind’s propensity to the course, vulgar, and licentious liberties common among those who used the sword and mace to control equally undisciplined values. Though England’s Kings and Court are exposed in their most basic appetites, Green remarks: “I have drawn greater attention to the religious, intellectual, and industrial progress of the nation itself than has, so far as I remember, ever been done in any previous history of the same extent.”


John Green died before his work could be fully edited. To bring his ambitious endeavor to fruition, his wife, Alice, labored on to finish his massive elaboration.


Development of the expansive United Kingdom is drawn in laborious detail; simultaneously, an introduction to English mechanics, in its purest form, can be perused in this copious demonstration of intellectuality. The book is highly recommended as an introduction to English skills; but amidst such linguistic elegance, readers must endure unending banality from the era’s repeated power struggles and unconscionable inhumanities. Still, with over one-half million words, the book represents a formidable history of English speaking peoples.


Incongruously, we find Wyclif’s Bible translative efforts honored, along with Tyndale’s; yet, no mention was made of King James’ translation effort to design a book ‘easy to be understood.’ King James, though he was crude and unscrupulous, was responsible for the most far-reaching literature to affect Anglo Saxon minds – though the result did not in the least alleviate symbol and number mysteries in the ancient and cryptographic Bible accounts. Even now, those secretive writings, unanswered for 2000 years, remain hidden to all but the most studious exegete. Neglected in the King James translation, as was King James’ considerable effort neglected by John Green, these mysteries have since been unraveled beyond contest.


The only fault accused Mr. Green’s considerable work is his neglect to the one truly great literary work accredited to English speaking peoples, the King James Holy Bible.



Critique Of John R Green's Book: "A Short History Of The English People"

No comments:

Post a Comment