JFDI BOOK #59: REVIEW OF IF ONLY THEY DIDN'T SPEAK ENGLISH

 

 

 

Review by Tom Wells

 

 

If Only They Didn’t Speak English—Jon Sopel has been the BBC’s North American editor since 2014, a stretch that has enabled him to witness up close and personal the most wrenching political transition to the ethos of e pluribus unum since the Civil War. His book tries to make sense of what to fellow Brits must look like wildly contradictory impulses of the American character—the simple willingness to help a neighbor versus the cynical mistrust of government beyond the community; the embrace of free enterprise to the extent it is literally hazardous to one’s health; the pious belief in the power of 21st C. technology to solve most problems and a vaguely worded amendment to an 18th C. Constitution to solve the others. The result is a well-written collection of anecdotes, experiences and observations backed up by cherry-picked incidents and statistics in an effort to be village-green middling. 

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