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Historian Andrew Roberts is the author of more than a dozen major works of history, including Napoleon: A Life, Churchill: Walking with Destiny, and The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III. His latest book, coauthored with General David Petraeus, is Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine, which provides the basis for this interview. Roberts discusses the differences in the way nations and allied forces prosecute wars in the twentieth century vs. today. Roberts also discusses his strong support for Israel in the current conflict in Gaza both in the media and in the House of Lords, where he is now a member. Roberts also explains (with some understandable exasperation) why Ridley Scott (the director of the recent film biography of Napoleon) is wrong —really wrong—when he says that historians are not to be trusted because “they weren’t there” when they describe historical events.
Recorded on March 13th, 2024.
Discussion (2)
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I just watched that, and learned a lot -- especially from a British historian's point of view. Thanks for posting it.
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Evidently the way for a historian to get a peerage is to say that the establishment was right 90% of the time and just needed to do a bit more of the same the other 10% of the time !
It's good that Roberts ( or Lord Andy as we call him at family gatherings..... ) is a bit of an old fashioned British Imperialist, but he's apparently not a very original thinker. David Irving is a better and more informative historian, but it seems likely he'll die penniless. If Roberts deserved to be made a Baron, Irving should have had a Dukedom and a vast country estate.