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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderfully written, perceptive work on England, May 11, 1999
This review is from: Anglomania: A European Love Affair (Hardcover)
Through the thoughts and perceptions of England from the 17th C. to today by a variety of Europeans who considered themselves Anglophiles, the author measures and comments on the realism or otherwise of their observations. A bookful of interesting visitors to England, some of whom remained to live out their lives there, makes the book a fascinating read. Ranging from Voltaire through Theodore Herzl to Isiaih Berlin and including a Prince "Pickle", we learn how the non-English sought to imitate the natives and pass for them, often enough based on mistaken ideas of their ideal. The original title of the book when published in Britain was "Voltaire's Coconuts". Interesting that the title had to be changed for the US edition. "Anglomania" is a much poorer title, since the subject is not so much anglomania as the view of England by foreigners, remaining surprisingly consistent over time even though the England of the beginning of the book has changed considerably over the past century. The admiration of the Anglophile seems always focussed upon the "English gentleman", aristocratic and not very democratic, existing in a country where freedom and liberal thought provide the counterbalance to despotism and sinister state control, so frequently the lot of Britain's neighbors. In the final two chapters of the book, Buruma observes a country with less liberal, even paranoid voices, when the topic is Europe. Not a pretty sight. And for these so-called defenders of British democracy and sovereignty from European 'demons', sounding like Hitler and his ilk appears to be no contradiction! This is by far the most readably interesting book I have read since Hugo Young's "This Blessed Plot". Come to think of it, the two books should be read as companion volumes!
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Liberal Coconuts, June 20, 2001
Like coconuts, Voltaire believed that English free institutions could and should be transplanted everywhere. This has special appeal to Americans who also hold strongly to this belief about their political institutions. Bunuma's book ranges to other Anglophiles up to Isaiah Berlin, taking in other figures like the soured -philes who turned into -phobes like Kaiser Wilhelm and Karl Marx. The book sparks like an intellectual firecracker - varied characters like Voltaire, Alexander Herzen, Nicklaus Pevsner, inhabit the pages. Overall the book will fascinate anybody who might even have just a minor interest in the history of ideas. The book is at his best when covering Bunuma's own experiences and those of his own family - his greandparents were German Jews who moved to England early in the 20th century. These were remarkable people - in the 1930s, they took in 12 Jewish refugee children, yet in 1945 at the first family Christmas after the war, they shared their Christmas meal with two German prisoners-of-war from the local camp. Sadly, examples of forebearance and humanity like this are all too scarce now in a world where violence and brutality seems to be daily celebrated in the mass media. Bunuma's anglophile love of English commonsense and pragmatism leads to fear for the future of English liberalism. In an acute observation, he recalls how the liberal Kingdom of Bavaria became the breeding ground of Nazism. His account of a Tory party conference and the perversion of old English values that went on, is scary. However, personally I feel his fears may not come to pass, since I write after the wipeout of the Tory party in the recent English election (2001). But anyone who has encountered a squad of English football fans on the rampage will know exactly where Bunuma is coming from. As an Irishman, I can relate to Bunuma since his juvenvile favourites of English public schoolboy adventures exactly mirror my own. While recognising English hypocrisy aboout class boundaries and its former exploitative Empire, I can see where British stubborness made the difference between liberty and those who sought to destroy it. For Britain to lose the great tradition of tolerance exemplified by Locke, Burke, Mill and Orwell would be an awful tragedy. Thanks to Bunuma, that may now be much less likely.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Albion - Profound and Pefidious, December 25, 2000
Why can't the world be more like England? asked Voltaire in his "Philosophical Dictionary" of 1756. To him, Britain was the land of liberty, of the rule of law and of moderation in religion and politics. Kaiser Wilhelm II would have disagreed vehemently. Despite his pride in the Order of the Garter and his position as colonel-in-chief of a Highland regiment, the ruler of the Second Reich saw Britain in similar terms as Napoleon had done, as a nation of crass materialism, lacking elan and vitality, cynically manipulating world events to keep Europe and Germany divided and weak. In this wonderful book, Ian Buruma examines the wide range of responses to Britain among Europeans through the stories of his Anglomanes - both 'phobes and 'philes - as well as from the perspective of his own family. The result is a fascinating mixture of memoir, biography and history, filled with unforgettable characters including Alexander Herzen, Karl Marx, Garibaldi, Isaiah Berlin, and Buruma's own grandparents. Towards the end, the author raises uncomfortable questions about the current state of affairs in Britain. Was Isaiah Berlin indeed the "Last Englishman," and is the "fabled land of common sense, fairness and good manners" a thing of the past?
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