The pecuiliarity of the English, a personal view - Alan Macfarlane writes as both an insider (British parents, brought up and educated and living in England, working on English history), and as an outsider (five-eighths Scots, working as an anthropologist in Nepal, Japan and China).

The book explains very simply some of the key features that those who wish to understand the English might like to know about, and what has caused some of the special of the English. These include politics (democracy), economy (capitalism), family (individualism), religion (puritanism, class (fluidity), education (for life), games (football), humour (irony), arts (literature), empire (identity).