Evil Empire: 101 Ways That England Ruined the World

by Penny Rimbaud and Steven A. Grasse

Book Overview

In "The Evil Empire," Steven A. Grasse exposes the secret history of England s global misdeeds. He asks what few have dared to ask: Having spent the better half of the millennium turning the world into their personal litter box, where do the English get off blaming everything on America? After all, whose imperialistic shenanigans is Osama bin Laden really trying to avenge? Whose landgrabbing ways put the Palestinians and Israelis at each others throats?...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594741735
• ISBN13: 9781594741739
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: Quirk Books
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.87 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.1" x 7.4"

Customer Reviews

great book

very funny, very true England has ruined the world with there imperialism, and silly victorian mannerisms.

Laughed a lot...

I just happen to have worked with the most snobbish Brit the world has ever known, and I can't wait to read some passages to him because they are right on target: They think they own the English language (kept correcting my pronunciation, as if...); they take credit for everything, and I mean EVERYTHING!, etc., etc. I understand some of the chapters are a bit frivolous (soccer & tea -which I happen to like-), but for the most part very accurate. Thank you Mr. Grasse! I couldn't have put it better!

Amusing read.

I was very entertained by this book. My wife is British and also enjoyed it. Not that either one of us have anything at all against the country or the people, we just took it with a grain of salt and laughed. We both know it's not all true but does bring up some good points. I just wish the author would be a good enough sport to write an equivalent about the US, which also has a "not so peachy" history. I think it's humans in general that are flawed by nature, not a specific group of them. Ooooh! do Canada!

Londonistan and Lad Culture

Yes, this is a polemic. Not "objective history". I recently saw a book here in the bookstore called 100 Ways America is Ruining the World. There seem to be a spate of these books. Some are kind of amusing. By taking an extreme viewpoint, the author has engaged in a fun, interesting polemic against England in history. It is interesting that this book is against "England", and not "Britain", so I assume, the Scots and Welsh, and of course the Irish can get in on the "Pom-bashing". The book is basically an attack on what Britain has done historically, all juxtaposed with funny cartoons. Aside from the obvious things like driving on the left side of the road and eating baked beans for breakfast, I would like to see the following put into the Second Edition: - The Irish Holocaust (1840s) in which the English basically tried to ethnically cleanse Ireland of Irish people. Leading to the 'Potato Famine'. - Amritsar, in which a British army unit fired indescriminately into a crowd of unarmed protesters in India (also 1800s). The modern version of this is the "Paras" firing into unarmed crowds in Northern Ireland in 1972 ("Bloody Sunday"). - The fact that the British MI5 and MI6 have been able to monitor all domestic activities, and then arrest suspects (the IRA, etc.) and detain them without real charges, and even use "coercion" (i.e. torture) against them. This is exactly the kind of thing the Brits accuse the U.S. and Bush of doing. The only thing is, the Brits have been doing this for 40 years. - Moral crusades: the campaign against fox hunting comes to mind. Animal activists have basically rid England of fox hunting. Result: the population of foxes in Britain has fallen drastically. Good job, animal rights people ! (someone once made the comment that an Englishman is someone who likes animals more than people). Add into the mix various environmental and 'animal rights' fanatics, who threaten people working in the biotech sector (in which animal testing is required sometimes to find cures for human disease and thus save lives). Some of them are just terrorists, really. Another example: the current campaign to wipe out private gun ownership in Britain. Result ?: gun crime is soaring in Britain. - The entire "Looney Left". Stalinistic union bosses. MPs who travel to Iraq and smooch with Saddam, etc. BBC reporters covering Hezbollah (Iranian terrorist organization) and are wild with enthusiasm, as if it were their first pop music concert, etc. Fanatical leftwing anti-Semitism. Blaming the U.S. and Israel for all the world's ills. - The "Beeb". The BBC is paid for by the taxpayer, and, I have mentioned, is basically a media source for the most hysterical anti-U.S. and anti-Israel viewpoints. All paid for by the British taxpayer. The entire farce about the BBC being "impartial". Total joke. - "Lad Culture": the English gave us the modern cultural phenomenon of grown men drinking themselves to oblivion and then acting like 13-year olds. This

My belly hurts from laughing so much

I decided to pick up a copy of The Evil Empire after I saw all the publicity the book was getting (it was written up in Playboy, The Daily Mail, Radar and on The Richard and Judy Show in the UK). I was expecting it to be pretty boring but I was rolling on the floor laughing! Of course it's not supposed to be serious! I love how it's written with such a dry tone and the statements Grasse makes are so outrageous that it amazes me that anyone who's looked through it could ever mistake it for an academic or historical text. Satire, people! Satire! Also loved the illustrations.