A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900

ANDREW ROBERTS has, as it were, picked up the pen of Sir Winston, whose four volumes with the same title concluded in 1900. He has done so, not unexpectedly, in the same spirit and with some of the same flourish as the master. Churchill had written that ‘every nation or group of nations’ had its own tale to tell. His account would fortify the English-speaking peoples of his day and play some small part ‘in uniting the whole world’. Roberts, for his part, tells us ‘emphatically’ that his book is not intended to be a comprehensive history of the English-speaking peoples on the grounds that such an enterprise, even if feasible, would be rather dull to read. Instead, we are presented with ‘a series of snapshots’ explicitly taken, it is said, rather arbitrarily, episodically and idiosyncratically. Conversations, on no mean scale, have been held with good and great English-speaking people. Archives in some ‘far-flung’ parts of the world have been visited. Battlefields have been inspected. The text (or parts of it) has been extensively scrutinised by others. Almost all that is left for a reviewer to do is to confirm, at the close of reading, that this large book is indeed arbitrary, episodic and idiosyncratic. A readership which wants its sinews stiffened, even its blood summoned up, not to mention comprehensive illumination on the wagers placed, at salient historical moments, by members of Brooks's Club, will not be disappointed. Where it is not, however, that illuminating is in how we are to understand the term ‘the English-Speaking peoples’ in the twentieth century, which it would have been very useful to have. How, and how far, the fact of speaking the same language—if it is still the same language—in itself creates, coheres and sustains a common set of political and social values is a fascinating issue. Given that the language in question is English, the language of current global communication, the question of ‘ownership’ or ‘incorporation’ is of additional significance. Roberts rejoices with Bragg (Melvyn, not Billy) in the fact that, apparently, we can still have conversations in Old English and with Crystal (described as a historian) in the claim that English is the most etymologically multilingual language on earth. All that is splendid, but it does not take us very far in trying to trace how we are to define speakers of English as some kind of community, at various critical points, in the history of the twentieth century. Roberts puts his cards on the table at once. The English-speaking peoples hail from those places where the majority of people speak English as their first language. He lists them as the United States, the United Kingdom ‘and her dependencies’, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the British West Indies and Ireland. The inclusion of the ‘British West Indies’ is merely a gesture and has no content. The inclusion of the last-named country is a reluctant one, since no opportunity is lost to highlight the failure of its inhabitants to behave as an English-speaking people should behave, though loyal Dubliners are allowed a photograph which shows them greeting ‘their beloved Queen-Emperor’ in 1900. The English (or British?) diaspora is admitted to have extended to South Africa, Rhodesia, Singapore, Hong Kong ‘and so forth’ but the account confines itself to places where the English language is the first language of the numerical majority today. Such an excision, of course, sweeps away problems at a stroke. India and Pakistan (cricket is mentioned) cannot be altogether excluded from the English-speaking pantheon, but Nigeria can be safely ignored, as indeed can almost all of Anglophone Africa. Thus who is in and who is out, on Roberts's criterion, prevents us reaching any understanding as to how the ‘English-speaking peoples’ of the Empire/Commonwealth worked and work. The first language of the majority may be one thing and the use of English by decision-making elites another. ‘The Commonwealth’ gets a mention en passant in the text (though no index reference) but there is no analysis of how it has evolved or what it now amounts to. This perhaps reflects the fact that the core of ‘English-speakingness’ is clearly held to be, on the one hand, the ‘old Dominions’ and, on the other, Britain and the United States. There are little glimpses of the internal life of the former, though Vincent Massey makes an odd Prime Minister of New Zealand. The decision of the United Kingdom to join the then European Economic Community is seen as a betrayal. The nature of the ‘English-speakingness’ of the United States, quite fundamental to the whole enterprise of the book, is not altogether ignored, but neither is its complexity examined as it should have been. The message, rammed home at every opportunity, is a simple one. When these countries act together, all is well, both for them and for the world (even if the world has sometimes failed to appreciate this fact), but if they have wavered in their ‘common purpose’ disaster has threatened. They have been engaged in four world-historical struggles—against German Nationalism, Axis Fascism, Soviet Communism and (now) Islamicist Terrorism. They have succeeded in beating off the ‘assaults’ to which they have been subjected. It would be a sad end to the great contribution which this linguistic world-grouping has made, Roberts concludes, if it should fail now. There is no intention on the part of this reviewer to swell the ranks of the anti-Americans, whose shortcomings the author has no hesitation in robustly identifying. But the cause of Anglo-American unity, or at least amity, is not helped by repeatedly oversimplifying the nature of the Anglo-American relationship. Lest any reader should think differently, Roberts emphasises, again ‘emphatically’, that the English-speaking peoples are not successful because they are inherently better or superior. They just happen to have perfected better systems of government which have allowed them to realise their full potential. They have been essentially pacific. The general contention of the volume is that this evidently marks them off from Europeans, whether in European behaviour at home or abroad (though references to German atrocities in Angola puzzle). Roberts, on the strength of this volume, may be able to enrol himself among his eminent Churchillians, but there is too much rhetoric and not enough complicated and ambivalent reality in the ‘English-speaking peoples’ as they are identified in this piece of pugnacious ‘revisionism’.