This is a book written for those who come to England from abroad, whether as short-term visitors, to be educated or engage in work, whether they come from the Continent or from other civilisations, especially the Far East. It provides over a hundred short descriptions of prominent English features and then tries to explain their origin and function. Under the first two letters, for example, we have: Absurdity, Amateurs, Antiquities, Aplomb, Barter, Beef, Beer, Brexit, Bribery and Bureaucracy. It is based on the experience of coming from India as a child and learning to be English, and then looking back as a historian of England, and an anthropologist exploring Nepal, Japan and China. It is a summation of over a dozen books about the English, from The Origins of English Individualism (1978) to The Invention of the Modern World (2014).