I shall let the author speak for himself: "Attmpting to sum up the national philosophy is in many ways an absurdly ambitious project. I hope to have got a lot right, but I know I will have got many things wrong... In some ways, I don't much care." And: "Like it or not, my study would say as much about me, and those like me, as it would about the English mind I was investigating." When Baggini says "like me" he means a full member of Britain's privileged middles classes. In that sense, this is only half a book: while it aspires to cpature "the English philosophy" it really is an examination of the working classes by a middle class outsider. We could sorely do with a similar study in reverse, to be honest. But there are some genuine insights in this book, particularly in the opening chapters. It badly loses its way after that, and becomes sporadically frustrating, particularly in Baggini's brief treatment of "mainstream culture", which seems rushed, patronising, and misses several key points - particularly the difference between corporate or massed-produced "culture" and "real" authentic or indigenous culture. ( )