Andrew Roberts (historian)
Andrew Roberts FRHistS FRSL[2] (born 13 January 1963)[3] is a British historian and journalist. He is a Visiting Professor at the Department of War Studies, King's College London, a Roger and Martha Mertz Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a Lehrman Institute Distinguished Lecturer at the New-York Historical Society. He has been a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, London since 2013.[4][5] Roberts was educated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he earned a first-class degree in Modern History.
Andrew Roberts FRHistS FRSL | |
---|---|
Born | Hammersmith, London, England | 13 January 1963
Education | Cranleigh School |
Alma mater | Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (B.A. (Hons.), PhD) |
Occupation | Historian and Journalist |
Political party | Conservative |
Spouse(s) |
|
Website | www |
His public commentary has appeared in several periodicals such as The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator. Roberts himself is possibly best known internationally for his 2009 non-fiction work The Storm of War,[6][7] which covers historical factors of the Second World War such as Hitler's rise to power and the organisation of Nazi Germany. The book has been lauded by several publications such as The Economist,[7] and it additionally received the British Army Military Book of the Year Award for 2010.[6]
Much of Roberts' work, including his 2018 biography of Winston Churchill, has been widely praised; the Sunday Times, for example, called the Churchill biography 'Undoubtedly the best single-volume life of Churchill ever written.'[8] Elsewhere, his work has sometimes been criticised by, for example, The Economist who described one book as "a giant political pamphlet larded with its author's prejudices, with sneers at those who do not share them and with errors".[9]
Early life and education
Roberts was born in Hammersmith, west London, the son of Kathleen (née Hillery-Collings) and business executive Simon Roberts.[1][10] Simon Roberts, from Cobham, Surrey, inherited the Job's Dairy milk business and also owned the United Kingdom contingent of Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. A prolific reader as a child, he soon gained a passion for history, particularly for dramatic works relating to "battles, wars, assassinations and death".[3]
Roberts attended Cranleigh School in Surrey. He studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and he went on to chair the Cambridge University Conservative Association.[11] He earned a first class honours B.A. degree in Modern History and a Ph.D..
Roberts began his career in corporate finance as an investment banker and private company director with the London merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., where he worked from 1985 to 1988. He published his first historical book in 1991.
Personal life
Roberts is divorced from his first wife, Camilla Henderson, with whom he had two children.[3][12] Roberts is married to businesswoman Susan Gilchrist, CEO of the corporate communications firm Brunswick Group LLP and chairman of the South Bank Centre. They currently live in London.
Roberts has worked with think tank organisations such as the Centre for Policy Studies and the Centre for Social Cohesion. He additionally has maintained personal friendships with several British political and social figures such as David Cameron, Michael Gove and Oliver Letwin.[3] In February 2016, he was appointed President of the Cambridge University Conservative Association.
Historical and socio-political viewpoints
Commentary on history
Roberts' analysis of the Second World War convinced him that the Nazi German government had significant advantages in military organisation and economic power early in the war. He has argued that, if someone other than Adolf Hitler had control of the nation's military strategy, the country would likely have forgone a costly direct invasion of Soviet territory (which occurred through Operation Barbarossa) and instead would have swept through Mediterranean territories before trying to seal off British-controlled Middle East areas. Thus, Roberts believes, the likely morale-building victories against the comparatively weak forces to the southeast could have allowed Hitler to essentially "win" the war.[7] The other key strategic mistake, according to Roberts, was the German declaration of war against the United States, which happened only four days after the Pearl Harbor attacks and which the Nazi regime was not obliged to do. Roberts argues that after the declaration, Germany could not keep the U.S. war-making economic machine at bay.[7] In short, Roberts believes that the mistakes, delusions and exaggerated self-confidence complexes that the fascist dictatorship fostered proved its undoing.[13]
Roberts has also stated that he views Joseph Stalin's control of the Soviet forces as having been disastrous to the allied efforts against the Axis powers. He noted that Stalin's obsessive tactics of killing his own men for ideological reasons cost him thousands upon thousands of troops. In the Battle of Stalingrad alone, Soviet forces killed the equivalent of two full divisions of their own personnel.[7]
In terms of more recent history, Roberts whole-heartedly embraced Thatcherism. He has remained a staunch backer of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her socio-political legacy.[3] In Roberts' opinion, Thatcher's insight to push the UK into a path in which it kept out of the Euro while still having strong ties to European economies has been validated by the Eurozone crisis in the aftermath of the world economic recession. After Tony Blair resigned as Prime Minister, Roberts assessed him as an "exemplary war leader" with his "vigorous prosecution of the War against Terror", which would leave him regarded as a "highly successful prime minister".[14] In the 2016 UK Referendum on the EU, Roberts backed a Leave vote.[15]
Support for the Iraq War and Military Intervention
Roberts supports a strong American military and has generally argued in favour of close relations between the Anglosphere nations. As an advocate for the general principle of democratic pluralism, he has argued that "[s]neered at for being 'simplistic' in his reaction to 9/11, Bush's visceral responses to the attacks of a fascistic, totalitarian death cult will be seen as having been substantially the right ones" in the long run. In many writings, he has come out in support of neo-conservative influenced socio-political viewpoints.[3]
During the buildup to the Iraq War, Roberts supported the proposed invasion, arguing that anything less would be tantamount to appeasement, comparing Tony Blair to Winston Churchill in his "astonishing leadership". He additionally argued that acting against Saddam Hussein was in line with the "Pax Americana realpolitik that has kept the great powers at peace since the Second World War, despite the collapse of communism".[16]
Roberts wrote in 2003 "For Churchill, apotheosis came in 1940; for Tony Blair, it will come when Iraq is successfully invaded and hundreds of weapons of mass destruction are unearthed from where they have been hidden by Saddam's henchmen."[17] When such weapons were not found, Roberts still defended the invasion for larger strategic reasons while arguing that his past views were based on credible assessments from "the French, Chinese, Israeli and Russian intelligence agencies" as well as other sources.
Authorship and television appearances
Early works
The first of Roberts' books was the biography of Neville Chamberlain's and Winston Churchill's foreign secretary, Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, entitled The Holy Fox, and published in 1991. Roberts provided a revisionist account of Wood, a one-time Viceroy of India and the Foreign Secretary in Chamberlain's government. Halifax has been charged with appeasement, along with Chamberlain, but Roberts argues that Halifax in fact began to move his government away from that policy vis-à-vis Hitler's Germany, following the 1938 Munich Crisis.
This work was followed by Eminent Churchillians, in 1994, a collection of essays about friends and enemies of Churchill. A large part of the book is an attack on Admiral of the Fleet Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma and other prominent members of the elite. The title is an obvious allusion to the famous and similarly combative book of biographies Eminent Victorians.
In 1995 Roberts published The Aachen Memorandum, a thriller novel based on Britain and its relationship with a fictionalised European Union.
In 1996 Andrew Roberts offered his "personal view" of the Suez crisis in an Open Media production for BBC TV. The Radio Times described the programme: "Forty years after Eden's decision to deploy troops against the Egyptians, Andrew Roberts argues that the former prime minister should be congratulated, not chastised, for fighting to protect British assets".[18]
In 1999, Roberts published Salisbury: Victorian Titan, a biography of the Victorian era politician and then Prime Minister Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury. Historian Michael Korda praised the work as "a masterpiece about one of the greatest and most able Tory political figures of the Victorian age".[13] The book additionally won the Wolfson History Prize and the James Stern Silver Pen Award for Non-Fiction. In September 2001, Napoleon and Wellington, an investigation into the relationship between the two generals, was published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, and was the subject of the lead review in all but one of Britain's national newspapers.
January 2003 saw the publication of Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership. In the book, which addresses the leadership techniques of Hitler and Churchill, he delivered a rebuttal to many of the assertions made by Clive Ponting and Christopher Hitchens concerning Churchill.
An accompanying television series based around Roberts' Hitler and Churchill ran on BBC2, with its first episode being broadcast on 7 March 2013.[17] Roberts remarked that he felt grateful for the BBC's support of his work and their unwillingness to cut corners when it came to exploring history in detail, quipping as well about the group's wardrobe policy, "Courtesy of this programme, I now have two Armani suits upstairs."[11]
Also in 2003, he became a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 2004, he edited What Might Have Been, a collection of twelve "What If?" essays written by historians and journalists, including Robert Cowley, Antonia Fraser, Norman Stone, Amanda Foreman, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Lord Black of Crossharbour and Anne Somerset. In 2005, Roberts published Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble, which was published in America as Waterloo: The Battle for Modern Europe.
His A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900, a sequel to the four volume work of Churchill, was published in September 2006 and won the Intercollegiate Studies Institute Book Award. Masters and Commanders describes how four figures shaped the strategy of the West during the Second World War. It was published in November, 2008 and won the International Churchill Society Book Award and was shortlisted for two other military history book prizes. The Art of War is a two-volume chronological survey of the greatest military commanders in history. It was compiled by a team of historians, including Robin Lane Fox, Tom Holland, John Julius Norwich, Jonathan Sumption and Felipe Fernández-Armesto, working under the general editorship of Roberts.
Overview of the Second World War
The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War came out in August 2009. A detailed look at the history of events behind the Second World War and various key elements within it such as the nature of Nazi Germany's rule, the book received large popular success.[7] and reached number two in The Sunday Times bestseller list. The book additionally earned the British Army Military Book of the Year award for 2010.[6]
In terms of critical response, The Storm of War has also received a wide variety of praise in publications such as The Daily Beast, where historian Michael Korda lauded it as written "superbly well" and stated that Roberts' "scholarship is superb",[13] and The Wall Street Journal, where historian Jonathan W. Jordan said that Roberts "splendidly weaves a human tragedy into a story".[19] Support also came from figures such as American political commentator Peter Robinson and fellow English historian Paul Johnson. In the book, the author aims to paint a concise yet highly detailed picture of the conflict in which he argues that dictators Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler both took terrible actions due to their repressive ideologies, throwing thousands and thousands of lives away in the process, yet the eventual defeat of the Axis powers constituted a moral triumph of democratic pluralism over authoritarianism that led the way to a better future.[7]
Biography of Napoleon
In 2014, Roberts wrote Napoleon the Great (the American edition is titled Napoleon: A Life), which was awarded the 2015 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for best biography. In this biography, Roberts seeks to evoke Napoleon's tremendous energy, both physical and intellectual, and the attractiveness of his personality, even to his enemies. The book argues against many long-held historical opinions, including the myth of a great romance with Joséphine. She took a lover immediately after their marriage, as Roberts shows, and Napoleon in fact had three times as many mistresses as he acknowledged. Roberts goes through fifty-three of Napoleon's sixty battlefields, and he additionally evaluates a gigantic new French edition of Napoleon's letters, aiming to create a complete re-evaluation of the man.[20]
Like The Storm of War, Roberts's life of Napoleon received critical praise from a wide range of publications. For example, journalist Jeremy Jennings wrote for Standpoint in October 2014 that "Napoleon could have had few biographers more dedicated to their subject." Jennings additionally labelled the book a "richly detailed and sure-footed reappraisal of the man, his achievements—and failures—and the extraordinary times in which he lived".[20] The book earned the Prix du Jury des Grands Prix de la Fondation Napoléon for 2014, an award given by the historical organisation Fondation Napoléon.[21]
Praise additionally came from fellow historian Jay Winik: 'With his customary flair and keen historical eye, Andrew Roberts has delivered the goods again. This could well be the best single volume biography of Napoleon in English for the last four decades. A tour de force that belongs on every history-lover's bookshelf!’[22] Author of historical fiction Bernard Cornwell describes the book as 'Simply dynamite ... [Napoleon was] a mass of contradictions and Roberts's book encompasses all the evidence to give a brilliant portrait of the man. The book, as it needs to be, is massive, yet the pace is brisk and it's never overwhelmed by the scholarly research, which was plainly immense ... Roberts suggests looking at Europe for the Emperor's monument, but this magnificent biography is not a bad place to start.'[23]
In announcing in 2013 that it would present a three-part television series based on Roberts's analysis of Napoleon's life and legacy, BBC Two declared in its press release that "Roberts sets out to shed new light on the emperor... an extraordinary, gifted military commander and a mesmeric leader whose private life was littered with disappointments and betrayals."[24] However, the series has had mixed reviews. The Daily Telegraph declared it "unconvincing", saying "there was no getting away from Roberts’s regular lapses into hero-worship," and "Roberts’s remarks on the refreshing qualities of dictatorship made me wonder if he had taken leave of his senses".[25]
Churchill biography
In 2018, Roberts produced a biography of Churchill entitled Churchill: Walking with Destiny. Dovetailing with Roberts' previous work on the Second World War and its related major figures, the book received praise from a number of publications. The Financial Times wrote, "Anecdotes sparkle like gems throughout Roberts’s book, an exhaustive but fluent text that draws on a wider range of sources than the typical Churchill biography."[26] Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer included the book among the 'Books of the Year' and said that "Roberts triumphed over my skepticism with his riveting account of the extraordinary life of the most remarkable individual to have lived at No 10."[27] Stephen Pollard, in The Jewish Chronicle, lauded the book as "the most superb one-volume biography I have ever read— of anyone." Pollard additionally remarked, "Roberts manages something I thought impossible. He has given us a new, ground-breaking portrait of the man whom many consider to be the greatest ever Englishman. This is a simply wonderful book. A living, poetic, stirring yet thought-provoking portrait of a giant, it will be regarded as a classic for generations to come."[28]
The New York Times commented that 'All told, it must surely be the best single-volume biography of Churchill yet written.'[29] The National Book Review also noted that the book was 'widely praised as the best single-volume biography of Winston Churchill ever written' and added that 'historian and commentator Roberts draws on previously unavailable journals and notes for the robust, engrossing, and nuanced history of the great British leader.'.[30]
Journalism and lecturing
Roberts has created short works on a variety of subjects, his published columns appearing in popular periodicals such as The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, amongst others.[6]
In addition, since 1990, Roberts has addressed hundreds of institutional and academic audiences in many countries, including a lecture to George W. Bush at the White House.
Roberts has appeared on US television during royal funerals and weddings. He first came to prominence in the United States due to acting as an expert on the funeral of Princess Diana, in 1997, and he was later in a similar role during the CNN broadcast of the death of the Queen Mother and on the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles. In Britain in 2003, he presented The Secrets of Leadership, a four-part history series on BBC 2 about the secrets of leadership which looked at the different leadership styles of Churchill, Hitler, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Roberts is a Director of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation in New York, a founder member of José Maria Aznar's Friends of Israel Initiative, and in 2010 chaired the Hessell-Tiltman Award for Non-Fiction.
Roberts is a judge on the Elizabeth Longford Historical Biography Prize. He chaired the Conservative Party's Advisory Panel on the Teaching of History in Schools in 2005, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He has also been elected a Fellow of the Napoleonic Institute and an Honorary Member of the International Churchill Society (UK). He is a Trustee of the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust and of the Roberts Foundation.[31]
During the autumn of 2013, Roberts served as the inaugural Merrill Family visiting professor in history at Cornell University. He taught a course entitled "Great European Leaders of the 19th and 20th Centuries and their Influence on History."[32] He's additionally spoke in many other American universities such as the University of Montana.[6]
Disputes and criticisms
Although Roberts's 2006 work A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900 won critical acclaim from some sections of the media,[33][34] The Economist drew attention to some historical, geographical and typographical errors, as well presenting a generally scathing review of the book. The newspaper referred to the work as "a giant political pamphlet larded with its author's prejudices".[9] More generally, Reba Soffer described him in 2009 as "devoted ...to public, polemical conservatism as well as to historical revisionism".[35]
One claim made by Roberts in A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900 was that Harvard historian Caroline Elkins had committed "blood libels" in her Pulitzer prize-winning book Imperial Reckoning.[36] Elkins was subsequently vindicated when files released by the National Archives showed that abuses were described as "distressingly reminiscent of conditions in Nazi Germany or Communist Russia" by the Solicitor General of the time.[37] The Foreign Secretary William Hague subsequently announced compensation for the first round of victims with statements that the British government "recognises that Kenyans were subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment" and "sincerely regrets that these abuses took place" during the Kenya Emergency.[38][39]
British journalist Johann Hari has claimed that Roberts' writings defended acts such as the Amritsar massacre, the concentration camps for Afrikaners during the Second Boer War and mass internments in Ireland. Hari also wrote that Roberts addressed the expatriate South African Springbok Club that flies the pre-1994 South African national flag and calls for "the re-establishment of civilised rule throughout the African continent".[40] Roberts responded by saying that he did not realise the Springbok Club was racist when he took on the speaking engagement.
Publications
Books authored by Roberts
- The Holy Fox: A Biography of Lord Halifax, London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991 ISBN 0-297-81133-9.
- Eminent Churchillians, London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1994 ISBN 0-297-81247-5; Simon & Schuster, 1994, ISBN 978-0-671-76940-6
- The Aachen Memorandum, London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995 ISBN 0-297-81619-5.
- Salisbury: Victorian Titan, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999, ISBN 978-0-297-81713-0
- The House of Windsor, Berkeley, Calif. : University of California Press, 2000, ISBN 0-520-22803-0.
- Napoleon and Wellington : The Battle of Waterloo—And the Great Commanders Who Fought It. New York: Simon & Schuster. 2001. ISBN 978-0-297-64607-5.
- Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003, ISBN 978-0-297-84330-6
- What Might Have Been, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004, ISBN 978-0-297-84877-6
- Waterloo: June 18, 1815: The Battle for Modern Europe. New York: HarperCollins. 2005. ISBN 978-0-06-008866-8.
- A History of the English Speaking Peoples since 1900, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006, ISBN 978-0-297-85076-2
- Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West (2008), Allen Lane, ISBN 978-0-7139-9969-3 (UK edition); Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941–1945 (2009), Harper, ISBN 978-0-06-122857-5 (US edition). online
- The Art of War: Great Commanders of the Ancient and Medieval World, Quercus, 2008, ISBN 978-1-84724-515-1
- The Art of War: Great Commanders of the Modern World Since 1600, Quercus, 2009, ISBN 978-1-84724-516-8
- The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War online
- Love, Tommy: Letters Home, from the Great War to the Present Day. Osprey Publishing. 2012. ISBN 978-1849087919.
- Napoleon: A Life. New York: Viking Press. 2014. ISBN 9780670025329. UK edition: Napoleon the Great. London: Allen Lane. Penguin Books. 2014. ISBN 9781846140273.
- Elegy: The First Day on the Somme (2015). Head of Zeus. ISBN 1784080012
- Churchill: Walking with Destiny (2018)
- Leadership in War: Lessons from Those Who Made History, Allen Lane, 2019, ISBN 978-0241335994
Contributions to other works
- Virtual History (1997) One Essay
- What If? (1999) One Essay
- The Kings and Queens of England (2000) One Chapter
- The Railway King: A Biography of George Hudson (2001) Introduction
- Historian’s Holiday (2001) Introduction
- What If? Volume 2 (2001) One Essay
- Protestant Island (2001) Introduction
- Spirit of England (2001) Introduction
- The Secret History of P.W.E. (2002) Introduction
- Rich Dust (2002) Introduction
- A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (2002) Introduction
- Spirit of England (2002) Preface
- Historian's Holiday (2002) Preface
- What Ifs of American History? (2003) One Essay
- The Multicultural Experiment (2003) One Chapter
- British Military Greats (2004) One Chapter
- Lives for Sale (2004) One Chapter
- Hitler's Death: Russia's Last Great Secret from the Files of the KGB (2005) Foreword
- Liberty and Livelihood (2005) One Chapter
- The Eagle’s Last Triumph (2006) Introduction
- The Eagle's Last Triumph : Napoleon's Victory at Ligny, June 1815 (2006) Foreword
- Postcards from the Russian Revolution (2008) Introduction
- Postcards of Political Icons (2008) Introduction
- Postcards from Checkpoint Charlie (2008) Introduction
- A Week at Waterloo (2008) Introduction
- The Future of National Identity (2008) One Chapter
- Postcards from the Trenches (2008) Introduction
- Postcards from Utopia: The Art of Political Propaganda (2009) Introduction
- Postcards of Lost Royals (2009) Introduction
- Napoleon Bonaparte by Georges Lefevre (2010) Introduction
- Letters from Vicky: The Letters of Queen Victoria to Vicky, Empress of Germany 1858–1901 (2011) Introduction and Selection
- A History of the World in 100 Weapons (2011) Introduction
References
- "Roberts, Andrew, (born 13 Jan. 1963), writer". Who's Who. 2007. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U32682.
- Roberts, Andrew (13 May 2009). "How Torture Helped Win WWII". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
- Marre, Oliver (26 July 2009). "Andrew Roberts: The history man who loves to party". The Observer. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
- "Andrew Roberts appointed as a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery". Retrieved 26 June 2020.
- "The Prime Minister reappoints a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery". Retrieved 26 June 2020.
- "Esteemed Military Historian to Lecture at UM". University of Montana. 2 October 2013. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
- "The Storm of War". Uncommon Knowledge. 6 January 2012. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
- "Review: Churchill Walking with Desiny by Andrew Roberts". The Times. London. 30 September 2018.
- "Going out in the midday sun". The Economist. 2 November 2006. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
- "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
- Thomas, David (11 February 2003). "Churchill, Hitler and me". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
- "Andrew Roberts and Camilla Henderson". Tatler. 8 December 1995. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
- Korda, Michael (16 May 2011). "'The Storm of War' by Andrew Roberts: Best History of World War II". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
- "How will history judge Blair?". BBC News. 10 May 2007. Retrieved 9 November 2017.
- Breakfast with a Brexiteer
- Roberts, Andrew; Pimlott, Ben (8 March 2003). "The UN: Right or wrong". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
- Seaton, Matt (19 February 2003). "Blast from the past". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
- Radio Times, 23 October 1996
- Jordan, Jonathan W. (2 July 2011). "Hell's Ethos". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
- Jennings, Jeremy (October 2014). "The Enlightenment on Horseback". Standpoint. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
- "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 3 February 2002. Retrieved 17 November 2011.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- "Home – Andrew Roberts, British historian, British history writer, Masters and Commanders, A History of the English Speaking Peoples since 1900". Andrew Roberts, British historian, British history writer, Masters and Commanders, A History of the English Speaking Peoples since 1900.
- Andrew Roberts (2014). Napoleon the Great. ISBN 978-1846140273.
- "BBC Two announces new collection of history commissions". BBC Media Centre.
- Gerard O'Donovan (17 June 2015). "Napoleon, episode 2, review: 'unconvincing'". The Daily Telegraph.
- Barber, Toni (30 November 2018). "Churchill: Walking With Destiny/The Kremlin Letters – correspondents' ball". Financial Times. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
- Cooke, Rachel; Empire, Kitty; Rawnsley, Andrew; Cumming, Laura; Kellaway, Kate; Preston, Alex; Anthony, Andrew; Rayner, Jay; Naughton, John (9 December 2018). "Best books of 2018". The Observer. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
- Pollard, Stephen (18 November 2018). "Book review: Churchill: Walking with Destiny". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
- Aldous, Richard (13 November 2018). "Is This the Best One-Volume Biography of Churchill Yet Written?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
- "5 HOT BOOKS: A Timely Look at How to Get Rid of a President, Churchill, and More". The National Book Review. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
- Andrew Roberts web-site
- Andrew Roberts (26 August 2013). "HIST 1502 Great European Leaders of the 19th and 20th Centuries and their Influence on History" (PDF). Retrieved 2 October 2014.
- Daniels, Anthony (2 November 2006). "The case for the defence". The Spectator. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
- Massie, Allan (22 October 2006). "Happy is he who speaks English". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
- Soffer, Reba N. (2009). History, Historians, and Conservatism in Britain and America: From the Great War to Thatcher and Reagan. Oxford University Press. p. 301. ISBN 978-0-19920-811-1.
- Andrew Roberts (16 December 2010). A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900. Orion. p. 278. ISBN 978-0-297-86524-7.
One way that the Left in the West has attempted to undermine its legacy is to try to argue that was a 'moral equivalence' between Soviet communism and English-speaking capitalism. Thus in 2004 the University of California Press published a book by Mark Dow entitled American Gulag and subtitled Inside US Immigration Prisons, and in 2005 a book entitled Britain's Gulag was published about British detention camps in Kenya, written by a Harvard historian named Caroline Elkins, whose blood-libels against Britain won her the Pulitzer Prize.
- "British colonial 'cover up' in Mau Mau camp revealed in new secret document release". The Daily Telegraph. 30 November 2012. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
Serious concerns about the clampdown were raised as far back as 1953, the second year of the uprising, when Solicitor General described reported abuses as distressingly reminiscent of conditions in Nazi Germany or Communist Russia, according to one of the secret documents.
- "Mau Mau torture victims to receive compensation – Hague". BBC News. 6 June 2013. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
- "UK to compensate Kenya's Mau Mau torture victims". The Guardian. Press Association. 6 June 2013. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
- Hari, Johann (31 July 2009). "The dark side of Andrew Roberts". The Independent. Retrieved 14 September 2018.