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Anglomania: A European Love Affair

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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!

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.

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?

It has been a long time since I read a book that I enjoyed so thoroughly. Part European travelogue, Buruma travels from Voltaire's home in Ferney, to Germany, to Holland, and to Great Britain; part philosophical reflection, part history, and part autobiography, Buruma ties together all the strands in a perfectly beautiful bow. Wonderfully written, with unforgettable profiles of major historical and literary figures. "Laughter is Forbidden!" announced the Germans as they produced Shakespeare's plays -- but laughter, tears, and insights are the inevitable outcome of a few hours curled up with "Anglomania: A European Love Affair."

This has to be one of the most delightful books I have read in recent years. When I picked it up, I thought it was going to be about the American obsession with all things British in popular culture. You know, the glut of Jane Austen movies, Masterpiece Theatre, BBC productions, etc. But that's not what this book is about at all. It is a highly refinded examination of European attitudes toward England as found in the writings of politicians, political philosophers, and artists and as reflected in the experiences of Buruma himself.

I was thoroughly impressed by Buruma's ease in discussing the political ideologies of the 18th and 19th centuries. I was also particularly delighted to read the chapter that discusses the lives and work of Nikolaus Pevsner and F. A. Hayek, two favorite authors from my college days. Buruma is a lively and engaging writer who is sure to please anyone with the least bit of curiosity about the past and with a love of England and what it represents in its deepest and most profound senses.

This is simply a delightful book,in which Dutchman Buruma (whose grandparents were German Jews who fled Germany)intertwines his and his family's experiences with England with the experiences of many Anglophiles and Anglophobes. It makes for a very easy, rewarding reading. Buruma talks about many Europeans who loved or hated (and frequently loved and hated at the same time) England. First he deals with that most acute of observers, Voltaire, and his question of why can't the world be more like England?, the land of liberty, the rule of law, tolerance and restraint. Marx, Pevsner, Herzen, Kaiser Wilhelm II and many other politicians, philosophers and artists are portraited here in their relationship with these crucial island.
The book is fast, sharp, funny, erudite, full of interesting anecdotes, and most of all a book about ideas and attitudes. it is one of the best books I've read recently and it is totally recommended.

A caveat, if it is needed, to American readers contemplating the purchase of this book: Pay attention to the subtitle "A European Love Affair." This work in not about American Anglophilia, an entirely different, and, it seems to me, Wodehousian subject.

That being said, what this book does concern is a sort of hopscotch history lesson of European Anglophilia tying together Buruma's own history with the mini-biographies of certain historical figures from European history and their love, hate, love-hate relationship to England.

Yes, the book is breezy, witty, erudite, as anyone who has read Buruma's frequent pieces in The New York Review of Books would expect. But, to me, there's something slightly off key about it. His examples seem to be a bit too cherry-picked, for one. There is too little of Buruma's own voice in it as well. Not only does he not seem to know where he stands at the end of the book, but, throughout, save for the pieces involving him and his family, he narrates these brief biographies as if part of him were off paring his nails somewhere. There is little Buruma in Buruma's work, as far as a narrative voice pertains. In other words, it's the exact opposite of other monumental works of British history: Churchill's, Hume's, Macaulay's. - But, I forget, this is a work about Anglophilia - not of England or Britain itself. Perhaps that explains the dry tone in places. For, as Buruma admits, the subject he's taken up here is more than a little chimerical: "That is the trouble with national essences, or spirits, or characters: they cannot be pinned down; there are too many associations, personal and historical, to be boiled down into an essence." P.239

I think this book will appeal most to lovers of quirky, mostly forgotten history. - Do you know who founded the IOC? - Well, you will learn all about him and the founding of the modern Olympic Games here, as well as much else of historical figures of his ilk. For that, it's clearly worth the read.