{
    "id": 360349,
    "slug": "secret-world",
    "nstc": null,
    "title": "Secret world",
    "subtitle": null,
    "collection_title": null,
    "collection_part_number": null,
    "annotation": null,
    "description": "Throughout history the English have been a warlike lot. Often we fight among ourselves - there have been a good few civil wares - and when we were not slaughtering each other, we practised on our neighbours, the Scots, the Irish, the French . . . When that got too easy, we set off around the world to find other people to fight. This was usually done with a hubris that invited some ludicrous pratfall. <br></br>\u00b7         Do you know which crazy field marshal told the Duke of Wellington that he had been made pregnant with an elephant by a French grenadier?<br></br>\u00b7         Or which cowardly general hid behind a tree when his troops walked straight into a Spanish ambush?<br></br>\u00b7         Or which regiment drank 7217 gallons of liquor between them?<br></br>In <i>The Beastly Battles of Old England</i>, Nigel Cawthorne takes us on a darkly humorous journey through some of our ill-advised military actions. From the war over a severed ear to a general seeking out his rival's mistresses to even the score, it is a miscellany of insufferable arrogance, reckless gallantry, stunning stupidity, massive misjudgements and general beastliness.",
    "additional_content": null,
    "bestseller_60": null,
    "imprint": null,
    "language_code": "eng",
    "original_language_code": null,
    "page_count": 875,
    "duration_seconds": null,
    "publication_date_first": "2019-07-04",
    "publication_date_latest": "2019-07-04",
    "cover_url": null,
    "editions": [
        {
            "isbn": "9780140285321",
            "product_form": "BC"
        }
    ],
    "ratings_count": 0,
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    "rating_average": null,
    "ratings_distribution": {
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        "3": 0,
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        "5": 0
    },
    "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:28:51+00:00",
    "updated_at": "2025-11-07T00:29:17+00:00",
    "publisher": {
        "id": 4181,
        "slug": "penguin-uk",
        "name": "Penguin UK",
        "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:08:37+00:00",
        "updated_at": "2025-09-19T15:10:59+00:00"
    },
    "contributors": [],
    "genres": [],
    "subjects": [
        {
            "scheme_identifier": "32",
            "scheme_version": null,
            "main_subject": false,
            "subject_code": "680",
            "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:28:51+00:00",
            "updated_at": "2025-09-19T13:28:51+00:00"
        }
    ],
    "tags": [],
    "campaigns": []
}