Fake Heroes: Ten False Icons and How they Altered the Course of History

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I have finished reading “Fake History: Ten Great Lies and How They Shaped the World” by Otto English. Is there really a difference between the giant statue of a golden dog unveiled in Turkmenistan, and Britain's own statue of Petra, the Blue Peter dog in Manchester?

Argument Honestly held opinions and provocative argument based on current events or our recent reports. Firstly, I think the author is just a little too open in using the book to display his political opinions. The attention to factual detail (apart from the re-printed paragraph ;-) it doesn’t warrant the loss of one star) is quite extraordinary for what cannot avoid being a fairly general overview of a number of historical figures.English has a very clear bias in his writing, which was made clearer in his narration in the audiobook. This is a mixed bag that deconstructs "great lies" of history and attempts, with varying degrees of success, to find parallels with the current political reality. Shackleton went especially to meet Scott when he arrived back from the expedition, and Scott chaired a dinner for Shackleton when he arrived home from his Nimrod expedition in 1909. Otto English uses 10 commonly held 'facts' and uses each to expose many commonly held beliefs that are in fact false. For example, Churchill was observer of the Cuban insurrection, but he did not fight for the Spanish.

The contents have left me feeling a bit dismayed, a bit angry, a bit hopeful and a lot more determined to keep developing my “bullshit detector”. If it was a 'myth' that the Terra Nova expedition was foremost a scientific endeavour, it's unlikely that the men would have bothered to stop to collect rock samples on their way back from the pole. You can read this before Fake Heroes: Ten False Icons and How they Altered the Course of History PDF EPUB full Download at the bottom. For example, I have not once encountered an author portray Churchill as having come from anything other than a privileged background.

Whether it’s virtuous leaders in just wars, martyrs sacrificing all for a cause, or innovators changing the world for the better, down the centuries supposedly great men and women have risen to become household names, saints and heroes. Whether it's virtuous leaders in just wars, martyrs sacrificing all for a cause, or innovators changing the world for the better, down the centuries supposedly great men and women have risen to become household names, saints and heroes.

However, some of the things which English puts forward is told to the reader as though it is a novel idea, even though it is something which historians have been discussing for a while now.Easily the worst proofread book I’ve read, with loads of pretty jarring mistakes and really erratic punctuation. It is a great book to read but be assured it is certainly not a strict factual account of history with balanced views on what might have happened. Nevertheless, Otto English doesn't like Warhol at all, which is understandable in some ways, but not comprehensively explained.

According to the late great Wally Herbert, it takes a person around two years to become competent at running dogs, Scott had no chance of managing this, whereas the Norwegians would have been running dog teams for years, due to, y'know, living in the Arctic. at the people who propagated them", [7] including the idea that the British royal family are German, or that Adolf Hitler was a failed artist. There was never any sense in which Andy Warhol tried to claim otherwise, as his entire artistic life was about blurring the boundaries between consumerism and art. English accuses earlier biographers of downplaying the importance of Churchill’s wife, but doesn’t give any examples.English goes on a lengthy diatribe against quotations attributed to Churchill apparently ignorant of authors like Richard Langworth who regularly debunks false Churchill quotes. With that in mind I will talk about what I didn't like about the audiobook, but note that it didn't affect my rating of the book overall. Scott's men wore breathable canvas Burberry smocks to avoid this (Amundsen's team were dogsledding which meant they would be would be doing much less physical work and so needed furs to stay warm). However he did warn readers that he wanted to not only reveal the true history behind the myths but also how those myths have impacted society today.