CHURCHILL COMPLEX

The eminent American historian who is Jewish and has British grandparents was born six years after the end of the Second World War. 'Churchill's main attraction, I believe, lies in the myth that coloured my childhood, which ties in closely to the view many Americans have of themselves: the beacon of liberty, the city on the hill, the land of the brave, the exceptional nation that freed the world from dictators. Churchill, although only half-American, became the symbol of this defiance of tyranny. He is the bulldog face of Anglo-American notions of valor.' It is impossible to understand the last 75 years of British history without understanding the Anglo-American relationship, and specifically the bonds between presidents and prime ministers. Roosevelt of course had Churchill, JFK famously had Macmillan, his consigliere during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Reagan found his ideological soul mate in Thatcher, and George W. Bush found his fellow believer, in religion and in war, in Tony Blair. In a series of shrewd and absorbing character studies, Ian Buruma takes the reader on a journey through the special relationship, via the fateful bonds between president and prime minister. It has never been a relationship of equals; from Churchill's desperate cajoling and conniving to keep Roosevelt on side, British prime ministers have put much more stock in their relationship than their US counterparts did. "For Britain, resigned to the loss of a once-great empire, its close kinship to the world's greatest superpower would give it continued relevance and serve as leverage to keep continental Europe in its place." As Buruma shows, this was almost always fool's gold. Now as the links between the Brexit vote and the 2016 US election have come into sharper focus, it is impossible to understand the populist uprising in either country without reference to Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, although ironically they are also the key to understanding the Special Relationship's demise. 'History can inspire but also bedevil. How a wartime alliance that defeated Hitler with the indispensable help of Stalin's Red Army ended up after more than half a century of peace and prosperity in the West, in the dispiriting and dangerous bluster and self-delusion of Trump and Brexit, is a melancholy tale. ?Britain and the US, despite all their flaws, were once regarded as models of openness, liberalism, and generosity.? 308pp.