jan morris

the three books on the british empire are very readable and handy as an overview of events, in an old-fashioned way (it is pretty much "the brits gained an empire in a fit of absent-mindedness and gave it away in a spasm of more-tea-vicar niceness", but she's fairly tough on the in-between bits most of the time)

yeah i probably don't have enough general knowledge of history to make me read something specific unless i had an interest in it(and i don't really have a specific interest in the british empire)
and i can imagine your description being fairly apt,she is a fairly more tea vicar writer,i always find the fact that she is a such a conservative/traditional sounding writer fairly odd given that she is also a transsexual
the quaint,elegant way she writes is perfect for travel books,but i dunno about history,i could see its charm wearing thin

I've read Conundrum, which is kind of her autobiography - specifically, it's about her transsexuality. It's very good if you're looking for a personal account of transsexuality, but naturally, it's a bit dated as it was written about 30 years ago. I've also got, somewhere, a book she wrote with one of her sons about the town of Machynlleth. It's slightly bizarre, but I can't remember much about it.