Cultural Cringe

This is very unfair on Mr Holland, but…

I've just finished his medieval history, Millennium. It's wide-ranging, thought-provoking and works well because it has a strong narrative sweep. Yet two things stick in my brain about it. Firstly (as I said before), Wales is stamped 'England', which is ignorant. Secondly, every phrase is expressed in American English, such as 'meet with'.

I've no objection to American English. Many of my books are written by Americans and published there. I don't expect them to publish UK-English editions because I respect the cultural context of the book's origin. However, Tom Holland is a British historian, published in Britain by a British publisher. So the presence of Americanism's suggests that the publisher's ideal audience is the American market, and that American readers are so stupid that they won't understand even the minor variations of UK English.

I know this is trivial, but it's really annoying. Why not respect your home audience and your American one? Unless Mr. Holland is so cosmopolitan that he writes in American…