God Is an Englishman (The Swann Family Saga: Volume 1)

Product Information

Horne, Donald, ed. (1992). The Trouble with economic rationalism. Newham, Victoria: Scribe Publications. p.117. ISBN 978-0-908011-22-3.

He was, from the beginning of his studies at Balliol College, Oxford, drawn towards the 17th century. His first publication was an article in a 1940 collection, The English Revolution, 1640, which was a no-holds-barred assault on the traditional presentation of the civil war as an aberration in the stately continuity of English history. He would later downplay the essay as the work of an angry young man who expected to die in the war, but it marked the beginnings of his lifelong attempt to revive the energy, ideas, religiosity and politics of the 1600s for an educated 20th-century readership. On a family holiday in Swanage when he was young, Delderfield caught scarlet fever and had to spend three months in an isolation hospital. He also worked on writing, arts and citizenship boards and was an executive member of the Australian Constitutional Commission. [2] He was Chairman of the Australia Council from 1985-1990.

i feel like i uncovered a gem in this book--i get the sense it was the 1970s equivalent of the da vinci code (without all the quasi spiritual nonsense of course). though it got a bit tedious in parts, overall it was very engaging and fun to read. As I mentioned before, the whole book takes place in the 1860s, so there are some fascinating explorations of the historical/economic phenomenon that were taking place at the time. For example, the NW region of Adam's business, Swann on Wheels, gets its start hauling for cotton mills in Lancashire, but when the U.S. Civil War breaks out, the whole region is affected and Adam puts the wagons to a clever and heartwarming use. Another discussion through the book is the adaptation of both the culture and the business world to the expanding reach of railroads. There is one character in particular who remembers the glory days of coaching and coaching inns and hates the incursion of the railroad. His story has a poignant intersection with the railroad that brought me to tears.

The thread that binds the three elements into one is the national role of the Church of England, straddling religion, politics and society. So when Moreton recounts familiar episodes such as the Hillsborough disaster, various royal weddings and divorces, the miners' strike and the death of Princess Diana, he is mixing his own reactions, those of the established church, and a bigger picture of how each played in the public consciousness. The Adventures of Ben Gunn (a companion novel to Stevenson's Treasure Island telling of events which occurred before that book begins)For one thing, there is more to the story than the adventures of the individual family members. In addition to having eight children, Adam Swann has been all this time building his business, a hauling firm that has taken on the task of carrying the loads delivered around the country by the railroads from the train depots to their final destinations. (I like to think of them as English predecessors to modern companies liked Fed-Ex.)