Sunday, May 06, 2007

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900

Book review from The Movie Snob

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900, by Andrew Roberts (HarperCollins 2007). Winston Churchill wrote a four-volume History of the English-Speaking Peoples that ended in 1900. In this 650-page tome, Roberts aims to tell the rest of the story. And that story, in his view, is the story of how Great Britain and the other English-speaking countries of the world united to face down three mortal enemies in the twentieth century (the Kaiser's Germany, the Axis Powers, and the Soviet Union) and may yet combine to face down a fourth, that being militant Islam. I like popular history, and I'm as big a fan of the Anglosphere as anybody, but Roberts's book contains almost too much boosterism even for me. For a history of the twentieth century (that has a broader scope and is more fun to read) try Paul Johnson's Modern Times instead.

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