Watching The English, by Kate Fox

An anthropology of the English.

A pop anthropology book, meaning it's only 3x as long as it needs to be instead of 20x.

I did learn a lot from this book, but mainly as someone who was shaped by England but spent a lot of time in the US, and is now reflecting on how I come across in the US and whether I could come across better.

And that kind of highlights a core feeling I have about this book: even though Fox is smart and insightful, and has genuinely novel things to say about Englishness and notices real things that I think do mark the English out, she spends a LOT of time commenting about things that I'm unconvinced are specicifically English rather than universal. (She often says "I'm not saying other countries don't also x...", but she also doesn't establish why England's way of x'ing is truly unique or notable).

So the book I would have really wanted would be a comparative study of the English and Americans that found convincing differences between the two. Both because it would have been more helpful to me personally, and because I truly think it's a better way to analyse and understand cultures....