Product Description

A magisterial history inspired by Winston Churchill's famous opus, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 is an engrossing account of the twentieth century, with a unique perspective on our turbulent times. In 1900, where Churchill ended the fourth volume of his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, the United States had not yet emerged onto the world scene as a great power. Yet the coming century was to belong to the English-speaking peoples, who successively and successfully fought the Kaiser's Germany, Axis aggression and Soviet Communism, and who are now struggling against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. Andrew Roberts's History proves especially invaluable as the United States today looks to other parts of the English-speaking world as its best, closest and most dependable allies.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #73393 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-01
• Released on: 2008-02-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 752 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The English-speaking nations—America, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies—are a "decent, honest, generous, fair-minded and self-sacrificing imperium" and "the last, best hope for Mankind," argues this jingoistic peroration. Roberts (Napoleon and Wellington) treats them as a political-cultural unity, thriving on respect for law and property, laissez-faire capitalism and the Protestant ethic, and standing together against Nazism, communism and Islamic terrorism. (Ireland is the black sheep—backward, unruly, pro-fascist and Catholic.) His rambling, disjointed survey celebrates their achievements in science, technology, sports and Big Macs, but the book is mainly an apologia for an allegedly benign Anglo-American imperialism. The author defends virtually every 20th-century British or American military adventure, from the conquest of the Philippines to the Vietnam War, finishing with a lengthy justification of the invasion of Iraq; his villains are domestic critics and leftist intellectuals whom he calls "appeasers" and who sap the English-speaking peoples' resolve by propagandizing for totalitarianism (also Mel Gibson, whose anti-British movies sabotage English-speaking peoples' solidarity). Roberts writes in a bluff, Tory style, mixing bombast with jocular Briticisms like a running leitmotif of whimsical geopolitical wagers placed at London clubs. Lively but unsystematic, sometimes insightful but always one-sided, this is less a history than a chest-thumping conservative polemic. 16 pages of b&w photos, 2 maps. (Feb. 6)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Roberts has written a lengthy, ambitious, and interesting but flawed work intended as a sequel to Winston Churchill's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples,which ended with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. Robert eschews straight narrative history. Instead, he provides a series of vignettes covering various topics that range across the English-speaking world. He offers descriptions of the Boer War in South Africa, the role of capitalism in promoting economic development, and the American-supported coup that overthrew the Allende government in Chile. Roberts strains to show the fundamental unity of English-speaking peoples. He is somewhat convincing when dealing with Britain, New Zealand, and Australia. When he includes the U.S., he often goes to ludicrous lengths to find commonality. For example, he equates American neoconservatives with Britain's "empire men" in their supposed desire to spread civilization. In conflicts from the Boer War to the American suppression of the Philippine insurrection, Roberts consistently sees only the purest motives of "Anglo-Saxons." Still, this is a useful, if slanted, look at some key events of the twentieth century. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Andrew Roberts has justly made a reputation for himself as one of today’s leading young British historians." -- Alistair Horne, The Wall Street Journal

Customer Reviews

At last some one putting our case
Don't be turned off by the negative Publisher's Weekly review. This book makes the case that many historians have refused to make because of their ideological preference. When confronted with an alternative point of view, it is a bit rich for Publisher's Weekly to claim that the book is more polemic than history, what do you think Eric Hobswam, Noam Chomsky and Manning Clark, to name but a few writers, works of history are? Three supposedly main stream historians who are/where raving communists! The hypocrisy is astounding. This book restores some balance.

Desperate Apologetics Posing As History
"A History Of The English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900" by Andrew Roberts is an ambitious work that attempts to serve as a sequel to the four-volume work by Sir Winston Churchill ("A History Of The English-Speaking Peoples") that traced the histories from their humble beginnings up to January 1st, 1900. Roberts' opinion (which I do share) is that the best and most exciting history of the English-speaking peoples actually BEGAN from January 1st, 1900 rather than ended there. What was "the future" to Churchill is now our "past", seeing as how we have the luxury to examine it from where we are now in 2008. I grabbed the book, headed down to the food-court, gobbled down a beef-pie and started reading. I find much to agree with in the book. There should be no question whatsoever that we cannot understand much about the previous century (or our present, for that matter) without a careful examination of the importance of understanding the English-speaking peoples. In fact, however much we hate to admit it (as I believe readers of Chomsky do), the previous century really must be defined as the Century of the English-Speaking Peoples.

Having said that, Roberts' book is largely flawed. To put it more succinctly, the strengths of the book are also its weaknesses. Roberts go to no small lengths to prove the "greatness" of the English-speaking peoples (UK, US, Australia and Canada - but excluding Ireland, because of their seeming addiction towards self-flagellating regression) and ended up sounding so jingoistic as to sometimes be a turn-off! There is no question that there is much to laud, to applaud even, about the achievements of the English-speaking peoples. I would even go so far as to ascribe a certain undeniable greatness to them. But to read a 800-page defense of their "Manifest Destiny" can be a little too much to take. Perhaps the solution is to read this volume with another useful book called "An Utterly Impartial History Of Britain" (by John O'Farrell) within convenient reach so as to counter the heady-optimism. I often think that the best histories are those that make us critical of ourselves, our nations, our culture. Roberts' self-congratulatory tone throughout makes the book sound, at times, like a ridiculous religious tract written by blind-adherents rather than a work worthy of a true historian. Having said that, the breadth, the ambition and the obvious passion of the author is to be applauded. This will be a good volume to read and re-read, if for no other reason than to see the desperate apologetics of the English-speaking peoples in an age when they actually have to be so desperately apologetic!

Honest and Compelling, A Terrific Read
Agree 100% with the other 5* readers, this will indeed drive liberals nuts. How the English speaking people have helped make this world livable and just is beyond argument. Unless you happen to be a revisionist Anglophobe, and they're plenty out there.
Essential read along with Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism".
You want an accurate view of the last 100 years, here it is.
BTW, I'm reading the tag selections: stupidity, right-wing, inaccurate, and parody, being the first few.
Kick the libs to the curb with factual information.