The last time Conn Iggulden was on Colbert, he was selling The Dangerous Book for Boys. This time, he's selling The Dangerous Book of Heroes. Here's Publisher's Weekly (Amazon, B&N):
In this off-key collection of biographical sketches, the authors of the bestselling Dangerous Book for Boys series stumble over the limitations of retro puerility as a worldview. A few Americans, like George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr., and heroines, including Florence Nightingale and Helen Keller, appear in their pantheon, but the Igguldens embrace the sensibilities of a daydreaming Edwardian lad by focusing on soldiers and explorers of the British Empire. Some of these—Horatio Nelson, Antarctic martyr Robert Scott—seem wholly admirable, but in others the boisterous lust for adventure is accompanied by brutality and perversity. The authors dutifully note Sir Richard Burton's mind-expanding encounters with Indian prostitutes. They balance Oliver Cromwell's massacres of Irish Catholics with his achievement in decapitating royal absolutism, and offset 17th-century buccaneer Henry Morgan's town burning and church pillaging against his role in building the British Empire. As they struggle to explain their protagonists' misdeeds, the Igguldens' commitment to historical complexity undercuts their celebration of boyish dangerousness. This awkward mix of genuine uplift, moral ambiguity, and imperial nostalgia will confuse as much as it inspires.
Nearly all of the other reviews I found have problems with it as well (except for the National Review Book Service, which does have a complete list of the profiled 'heroes").
...That we are in need of heroism is in no doubt, but Iggulden (along with his brother David) has selected a peculiarly old-fashioned, colonial set of gents for worship. There are 37 male entries to six female, and the authors admit that some of their choices are more dangerous than noble. In Heroes there is the usual roll call of Churchill, Fiennes, Scott of the Antarctic and Florence Nightingale, but Iggulden is particularly keen on conquerors: Clive of India, Sir Richard Burton, Lawrence of Arabia and James Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak. Bonkers imperialists abound. Burton, the explorer and writer, had himself circumcised so he could pass as a Muslim at Mecca. Brooke set himself up with a kingdom in Borneo in 1841...
What is worrying is that some may consider Iggulden’s ripping yarns from history to be some kind of definitive guide, illuminating the qualities that make up the British character. His selection of mostly explorers and warriors rather than intellectual heroes narrows the field. Better to make your own international list, from Nelson Mandela to Oskar Schindler, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks and Charles Darwin, all of whom had Iggulden’s requirements of "courage, determination and some dash"....
...We need a new conception of heroism, not one based on a Victorian propagandist myth. TimesOnline.co.uk
I'll be quite frank: I enjoy a rousing tale of derring-do as much as the next manly fellow. I like my heroes bristling with weapons and facial hair, preferably whilst rowing longboats and shouting ‘ho!’ a lot. So I was all set to enjoy The Dangerous Book of Heroes as a kind of guilty pleasure. ...From early exploits to heroic last stands, we follow each life through to its noble conclusion and the idea is that we learn something in the process. Which is unfortunately where the Book of Heroes starts to go a little astray.
...Strangely, there doesn’t seem to be any room in this book for anyone who doesn’t have English as a first language, or at least the best interests of England at heart. It might be a minor quibble, but I’m pretty sure that less than half of the world’s greatest heroes were born outside of the home counties: it’s one thing to write a book on English Imperial Heroes and call it just that, but to just call it the Book of Heroes gives the rather unpleasant implication that anyone who didn’t fight for the Empire was somehow unworthy of inclusion.
This seems to have narrowed the playing fields somewhat, so there are a few people in the Dangerous Book of Heroes who frankly don’t seem to belong. Certainly some of the folk in here – Thomas, Lord Cochrane, or Captain Burton, for example – are genuinely interesting imperial adventurers, but there are still a few Victorian establishment figures who seem to have very little going for them. Cecil Rhodes, for example, seems to have little else to commend him other than the accumulation of vast wealth, the larcenous appropriation of African tribal lands and an involvement with the farcical Jameson raid...
...This atmosphere of apologism for empire grows throughout the book until it borders on outright jingoism. Coupled with a worryingly naive perspective on the nature of history, it makes a nasty subtext to a book that seems to genuinely believe itself to be in the right.... BookGeeks.co.uk
...Yet corking good fun as all this is, there is a wider aim: as the Igguldens say in their epigraph, "People who lose their history, lose their soul." Their mission is to bring back an understanding of British history and its greatness. But while they shed light on forgotten corners and characters – revealing, for example, that Fiji used to be known as "The Cannibal Isles", or that Churchill tried to offload Northern Ireland in exchange for de Valera’s aid – there is something disquieting here, too.
...It is not just that the valorous deeds become repetitive (this is, after all, a book to be dipped into), or that they all end with trite little morals. It is the central thesis itself, as expressed in the profile of Wolfe of Quebec: "The history of the last 500 years can be summarised in just a pair of sentences: the nations of Europe exploded outwards into the world, claiming territories as their own. One by one, they came into conflict with Britain, were beaten, and sent home."
You don’t have to have a history degree to see the problems with that statement, still less the claim made two paragraphs down: "There is no obvious reason why Britain became the pre-eminent power over five centuries, before passing the torch to America... The difference seems to have been just a handful of men and women who were in the right place to bring about huge change... Britain seemed to produce a higher calibre of leader and warrior at exactly the right moment. The one time there was no one of quality on the walls, the American colonies were lost."
This is the "great man" theory of history taken to a ridiculous extent: a shallow, misleading narrative shorn of causation and nuance....Telegraph.co.uk
...The DBfB {dangerous Book for Boys} quickly sold half a million and was soon much imitated by other publishers. Some of them simply printed photocopies of old, out-of-print boys' books. Many irrelevantly adopted the nostalgic packaging for half their list. One even presented us with The Great Big Glorious Book for Girls, having sadly forgotten that girls are not boys.
...Written in simple, assertive language, and illustrated with kiddy-book linedrawings, these sketches preach a form of history that is now otherwise largely extinct, saying Britain is best and it is brave individuals who shape the course of history.
..Our authors are not shy of drawing a moral. The Japanese were so inhumane to prisoners of war partly because they believed no soldier should surrender alive. "However, when Emperor Hirohito surrendered Japan on 15 August 1945, he absolved his soldiers, sailors, airmen and himself from the obligation of ritual suicide. You can't have it both ways," the Igguldens tell him, fearlessly.
Having gleefully described the bloody career of Henry Morgan, they conclude: "He was without doubt a ruthless devil when he needed to be. However, it is worth pointing out that empires are never built by vicars. They are built by men like Henry Morgan." Yah boo sucks to vicars.
..The only question remaining is: to what age of reader is this book pitched? Surely, for pity's sake, not adult? But then the Igguldens affirm that their book is needed as inspiration because "in this day and age, it is all too easy to become mired in paying the mortgage, being promoted, filling the hours with hobbies and anything else we can find".
Paying the mortgage! So they really think not merely that all men remain boys forever but that they are boys at best. The most dedicated misandrist could not ask for more. ThisIsLondon.co.uk
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