Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Asked by George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week programme on Sunday what was the last book he read, President Bush answered: "I'm reading A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900. It's a great book." He went on to say that he was taking from it the importance of taking the long historical view.

I think most people listening would have assumed he meant Winston Churchill's tetralogy - which actually ends in 1900. The President's "...since 1900" suggests that the book he's been reading is in fact the new one by Andrew Roberts,

On the way out the door, I asked him what he had been reading lately. The answer: Andrew Roberts's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 (an advance copy, apparently). Roberts is a friend of mine (and of Mark Steyn), a British history writer who has written the definitive biography of the 3rd Marquis of Salisbury (prime minister 1885, 1886–92, 1895–1902) and a delightful volume of essays on Winston Churchill's opponents, Eminent Churchillians. Roberts's English-Speaking Peoples is an extension of Churchill's multicentury history that ends around 1900, and I expect that it will take Churchill's view: that the English-speaking peoples have over the centuries taken up the responsibility of expanding freedom and spreading democracy and the rule of law around the world.

That is Bush's view as well, as I was reminded when I noticed the bust of Churchill as I was leaving the Oval Office.