A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 (Hardcover)

by Andrew Roberts (Author)
Key Phrases: fundamentalist terrorism, United States, New Zealand, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

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)
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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

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 752 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins (February 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060875984
• ISBN-13: 978-0060875985
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #392,477 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

93 of 108 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Facts are stubborn things, March 1, 2007

By	Albert S. Copersino (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Reviewers who've disparaged this author refuse to accept the objective facts discussed in his book and the inevitable conclusion that arises from these facts: uniquely among great powers, the US and Britain have mostly been a force for good in the world. Simply compare, as the author does, the overall progress and freedom of the American sphere during the Cold War to the terror and privation of the Soviet bloc. Or the fact that the legacy of Britain's Empire is, predominantly, a series of countries with freely-elected parliaments (versus the blood-thirty dictatorships that have taken root in France's ex-colonies). Or recall the genocides comitted over the years by other world powers (Russia, Germany, Japan, China, Turkey, etc.). Unless you're incurably hostile to democracy and capitalism (capitalism being the economic manifestation of democracy), or to the use of military force to defend democracy against fascists (of any stripe or religion), this book will resonate with you.

226 of 273 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Robert's book will drive his inevitable academic critics to distraction., February 22, 2007

By	William A. Barr (Charlotte, NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I agree with the book review from the New Criterion.

The English-speaking century
By Keith Windschuttle
The New Criterion
February 2007

"In the past one hundred years, four successive political movements--Prussian militarism, German Nazism, Japanese imperialism, and international Communism-- mounted military campaigns to conquer Europe, Asia, and the world. Had any of them prevailed, it would have been a profound loss for civilization as we know it. Yet over the course of these bids for power, a coalition headed first by Britain and then by the United States emerged not just to oppose but to destroy them utterly"

"The great achievement of British historian Andrew Roberts's new book, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900, is to put the significance of these feats into their proper perspective. Instead of emulating other historians who have portrayed the twentieth century as a cesspit of almost uninterrupted warfare, slaughter, and misery, Roberts snubs reproach and defeatism. His tale is of the triumph of light over the forces of darkness. He is even more at odds with his peers by identifying the common culture of the victors as the principal reason they prevailed."

"Robert's book will drive his inevitable academic critics to distraction. This is especially so in his use of the historical record to defend current American foreign policy. The English-speaking peoples did not actively support the extension of representative institutions throughout the world out of sentimentality or naïve utopianism. It was hard-headed self-interest. George W. Bush did not invent anything new with his unilateralism, pre-emptive warfare, and regime change. Rather, he adapted old tactics to new and ominous circumstances.

The so-called neoconservative drive to export liberal democracy actuated British statesmen such as George Canning and Lord Palmerston in the nineteenth century. Palmerston imposed regime change on Spain, Portugal, and Belgium, using the power of the Royal Navy to force liberal constitutions on countries that balked at first but later came to value them."

The academic-media hegemony desperately wishes to suppress or disapprove the thesis of the book. If the book is true then American involvement in Iraq is possibly justified. If the organ of the academic-media hegemony, the Democratic Party implements a pull out and retreat from Iraq, the resulting bloodbath would the Democratic Party's responsibility and not a moral failing of the USA, just as in Vietnam.

66 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tells the epic story of our times, March 4, 2007

By	John A. Barnes (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

I have just now finished Andrew Roberts' magisterial "History of the English-Speaking Peoples" and I can say without reservation that I have not felt so exhilarated by a history book since first closing the cover on Paul Johnson's "Modern Times" 24 years ago.

Henry Luce said that the 20th century would be "the American Century." It would be more accurate to call it "the Anglosphere Century." Locked arm in arm, and not without squabbles and occasional bad feeling, the English-speaking peoples cam together in the 20th century to repel the assault on civilization by what can only be described as barbarism in four of its modern forms: Prussian militarism (twice), Communism, and now, Islamo-fascism. Well, three of them have been seen off, anyway. The fourth, we shall see.

Roberts demonstrates decisively that no other possible correlation of forces could have accomplished these worthy goals. The English-speaking world's long history of government by consent, public audit of government performance, an impartial judiciary, and general sense of fair play gave it enormous advantages over the supposed "efficiency" of the Germans, the Soviets' ruthlessness, and (we all must hope) Osama bin Laden's frightfulness.

And yes, Roberts has a point of view. He is unabashedly pro-free enterprise, pro-defense, worships Winston Churchill and even has some kind words to say about George W. Bush. All of this, particularly the latter, has caused many, including most of the loopier "reviewers" on this page - few if any of whom, I venture to say, bothered to actually read it - to go completely 'round the bend.

Look, if what you want to keep you warm at night is a book that will tell you it's all Bush/Blair's fault and Al Qaeda will disappear like a soap bubble at noon on Jan. 20, 2009, then bookstore shelves are groaning with titles awaiting you. But if you want something that is going to put the current struggle into context, and shows how we have won before against far more formidible odds than we face today, then this one is for you.