How interesting to see all these places I know through foreign eyes. Perhaps “ foreign” is not quite the right word. As an aficionado of Walmart, you now qualify as “a reglar Amurcan guy.” Kidding aside, you have a gift for travel writing. Sounds like a potential book to me, and America could certainly use an outside perspective on our mores.
"The Americans do a marvellous job with their battlefields. The videos, exhibits, self-guided driving tours, memorials, information plaques are all excellent. Civil war battlefields in England are neglected. We tried to find one once and ended up parked in a bare field."
Do you think that's because of the lack of interest in history in England, or a lack of interest in the Civil War in particular? I don't get the impression that the English Civil War looms nearly as large in English consciousness as the US Civil War does in America.
That could be the 200 years that separates them, but I wonder if it's more than that. The US Civil War reflected a cultural/geographic division which in some respects still persists in the country - every state knows which side it was on in the Civil War, and every state's subsequent history reflects that.
But in England, while the Civil War was important in the long-term development of the political culture of the country, people would hardly know nowadays which towns were on which side, and if they did know, it would be more as a historical curiosity than because "Roundhead towns" are still in some material way different from "Cavalier towns". Or do you think there's more to it than that?
Just following up on my own comment, it occurs to me that Oxford was a key Royalist stronghold, whereas Cambridge (albeit not the University) was a key Parliamentarian stronghold. But Oxford and Cambridge nowadays would generally be thought of as culturally and historically very similar - I just don't think most people would see them as somehow reflecting opposite historical tendencies.
And that is surely related to what I said - that the English Civil War's divisions don't matter nowadays except for purely antiquarian interest.
I'm enjoying your writings about traveling in the American South, the paradoxes you see, the mixing in of traits closer to 17th-century England than to the expected "modern" world. Your description of Walmart was a treat, seeing something familiar and ordinary to me but seeing it as a marvel.
How interesting to see all these places I know through foreign eyes. Perhaps “ foreign” is not quite the right word. As an aficionado of Walmart, you now qualify as “a reglar Amurcan guy.” Kidding aside, you have a gift for travel writing. Sounds like a potential book to me, and America could certainly use an outside perspective on our mores.
I loved this post. You are a true traveler, full of curiosity. Re Spenser, I have had good luck with Hackett editions, also the one-volume Longman’s.
"The Americans do a marvellous job with their battlefields. The videos, exhibits, self-guided driving tours, memorials, information plaques are all excellent. Civil war battlefields in England are neglected. We tried to find one once and ended up parked in a bare field."
Do you think that's because of the lack of interest in history in England, or a lack of interest in the Civil War in particular? I don't get the impression that the English Civil War looms nearly as large in English consciousness as the US Civil War does in America.
That could be the 200 years that separates them, but I wonder if it's more than that. The US Civil War reflected a cultural/geographic division which in some respects still persists in the country - every state knows which side it was on in the Civil War, and every state's subsequent history reflects that.
But in England, while the Civil War was important in the long-term development of the political culture of the country, people would hardly know nowadays which towns were on which side, and if they did know, it would be more as a historical curiosity than because "Roundhead towns" are still in some material way different from "Cavalier towns". Or do you think there's more to it than that?
Just following up on my own comment, it occurs to me that Oxford was a key Royalist stronghold, whereas Cambridge (albeit not the University) was a key Parliamentarian stronghold. But Oxford and Cambridge nowadays would generally be thought of as culturally and historically very similar - I just don't think most people would see them as somehow reflecting opposite historical tendencies.
And that is surely related to what I said - that the English Civil War's divisions don't matter nowadays except for purely antiquarian interest.
I'm enjoying your writings about traveling in the American South, the paradoxes you see, the mixing in of traits closer to 17th-century England than to the expected "modern" world. Your description of Walmart was a treat, seeing something familiar and ordinary to me but seeing it as a marvel.
Please write about Maple Avenue, Vienna, the most underrated part of Northern Virginia!