Welcome to Everytown : A Journey Into the English Mind

What do the English think? Every country has a dominant set of beliefs and attitudes concerning everything from how to live a good life, how we should organize society, and the roles of the sexes. Yet despite many attempts to define their national character, what might be called England's national philosophy has remained largely unexamined—until now. Philosopher Julian Baggini pinpointed an area on the outskirts of Rotherham as England in microcosm—an area which reflected most accurately the full range of the nation's inhabitants, its most typical mix of urban and rural, old and young, married and single. He then spent six months living there, immersing himself in this typical English Everytown, in order to get to know the mind of a people. It sees the world as full of patterns and order, a view manifest in its enjoyment of gambling. It has a functional, puritanical streak, evident in its notoriously bad cuisine. In the English mind, men should be men and women should be women (but it's not sure what children should be). Baggini's account of the English is both a portrait of its people and a personal story about being an alien in your own land. Sympathetic but critical, serious yet witty, Welcome to Everytown shows a country in which the familiar becomes strange, and the strange familiar. This study of an ordinary town in Northern England is “a thoughtful, sympathetic portrait of white working-class life...essential reading” (Guardian). What do the English think? Every country has a dominant set of beliefs and attitudes concerning everything from how to live a good life, how we should organize society, and the roles of the sexes. Yet despite many attempts to define England's national character, what might be called the nation's philosophy has remained largely unexamined until now. Philosopher Julian Baggini pinpointed postcode S66 on the outskirts of Rotherham as England in microcosm—an area that reflected most accurately the full range of the nation's inhabitants, its most typical mix of urban and rural, old and young, married and single. He then spent six months living there, immersing himself in this typical English Everytown, in order to get to know the mind of a people. It sees the world as full of patterns and order, a view manifest in its enjoyment of gambling. It has a functional, puritanical streak, evident in its notoriously bad cuisine. In the English mind, men should be men and women should be women (but it's not sure what children should be). Sympathetic but critical, serious yet witty, Baggini's account of the English as represented by this particular spot on its map is both a portrait of its people and a personal story about being an alien in your own land. “Baggini turns out to be a sensitive observer who takes people and places on their own terms. He is also good at examining his own prejudices and fears.”—Independent “An insightful and often amusing investigation of what it means to be English.”—London Review of Books Baggini's account of the English is both a portrait of its people and a personal story about being an alien in your own land. Sympathetic but critical, serious yet witty, the book shows a country in which the familiar becomes strange, and the strange familiar Welcome to Everytown is an account of the English, a portrait of its people and a story about being an alien in your own land. It uncovers a country in which the familiar becomes strange, and the strange familiar.