Andrew Roberts on The Habits of Churchill, Lessons from Napoleon, and The Holy Fire Inside Great Leaders (#773)

“As soon as you think you understand a period, all it takes is one new set of papers or a new book written by somebody else that can make you look again at the same period and completely change your mind about it. And that’s a little unnerving at the age of 61, I have to say.”
— Andrew Roberts

Andrew Roberts (@aroberts_andrew) has written twenty books, which have been translated into twenty-eight languages and have won thirteen literary prizes. 

These include Salisbury: Victorian Titan, Masters and Commanders, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, Napoleon: A Life, Churchill: Walking with Destiny, The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III, and most recently, Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Gaza, which he co-authored with General David Petraeus.

Lord Roberts is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical Society, the Bonnie and Tom McCloskey Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and a visiting professor at the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London. He is also a member of the House of Lords.

Please enjoy!

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Want to hear another episode with a historian who looks to the past in order to understand where the future’s headed? Have a listen to my conversation with Niall Ferguson, in which we discuss the revoking of academia’s license to be outrageous, historical contingency, keeping Cold War II from heating up into World War III, the joys of digging deep into historical correspondence, why an atheist takes his kids to church, life under fatwa, an evolving toolkit for enacting change, and much more.

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

• Connect with Andrew Roberts:

Website | Twitter

• Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Gaza by David Petraeus and Andrew Roberts | Amazon
• Secrets of Statecraft with Andrew Roberts | Hoover Institution
• Other Books by Andrew Roberts | Amazon
• Discover Yourself | Cranleigh School
• The Untold Tale of Cambridge’s History of Espionage | Varsity
• Debrett’s Guide to the Ranks and Privileges of the Peerage | Debretts
• The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro | Amazon
• Niall Ferguson, Historian — The Coming Cold War II, Visible and Invisible Geopolitics, Why Even Atheists Should Study Religion, Masters of Paradox, Fatherhood, Fear, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #634
• Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire by Niall Ferguson | Amazon
• How to Write History by Andrew Roberts | National Review
• Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts | Amazon
• Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts | Amazon
• Noblesse Oblige | Learning to Give
• Why We’d Be Better Off if Napoleon Never Lost at Waterloo by Andrew Roberts | Smithsonian
• Code Napoleon | The Napoleon Series
• Guibert’s General Essay on Tactics by Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert | Library Genesis
• The Development of The Corps D’Armée | The Napoleon Series
• Napoleon at the Pyramids: Myth Versus Fact | Shannon Selin
• Winston Churchill Speeches from 1940 | America’s National Churchill Museum
• Marlborough: His Life and Times Series by Winston S. Churchill | Amazon
• My Early Life: 1874-1904 by Winston Churchill | Amazon
• Napoleon, History’s Greatest General or Strategist? | IHEDN
• Eyeless in Gaza: A Novel by Aldous Huxley | Amazon
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley | Amazon
• The Gathering Storm (The Second World War) by Winston S. Churchill | Amazon
• “I Shall Be the One to Save London” | The Churchill Project
• 10 May 1940: A Day to Remember | The National Archives Blog
• Abdication of King Edward VIII, 1936 | America’s National Churchill Museum
• The July 20, 1944, Plot to Assassinate Adolf Hitler | Holocaust Encyclopedia
• Memory of Macabre Cult Massacre Buried in Guyana Jungle | France 24
• Winston Churchill Harnessed Many Mistakes Into Victory | Investor’s Business Daily
• What Today’s Leaders Can Learn from Napoleon’s Mistakes | Inc.
• Keeping a Diary — Advantages and Challenges | Naturally Balanced
• When Louis XVI Wrote “Rien” in His Diary… | Tiny-Librarian, Tumblr
• What is Purple Prose? | Writers.com
• The Napoleonic Bee | A French Collection
• Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley | The Poetry Foundation
• Write, Cut, Rewrite: New Exhibition Sheds Light on the Cutting Room Floor of Modern Literature | Bodleian Libraries
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley | Amazon
• First Edition of Frankenstein | Lambeth Palace Library, Instagram
• Established In 2017 | Cliveden Literary Festival
• The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq | Amazon
• The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger | Randall
• E. Germain: The Marxist Theory of Imperialism and its Critics (1955) | Marxists.org
• ‘Too Much Hitler and the Henrys’ by Niall Ferguson | Financial Times
• Nearly Quarter of Brits Think Churchill a Myth: Poll | ABC News
• The Majestic Castles of North Wales | Visit Wales
• Westminster Hall | UK Parliament
• The Study of History and the Practice of Politics | International Churchill Society
• The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III by Andrew Roberts | Amazon
• Is British History Something to Be Proud Of? | The Week
• 1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade | UK Parliament
• Pros and Cons of British Empire: “Balance Sheet” History Asks Students to Legitimize Imperialism. | Slate
• The Upside of Empire by Andrew Roberts | National Review
• Thomas Jefferson Statue Evicted from City Hall Will Go to a Museum | The New York Times
• Notable Quotations by P.G. Wodehouse | Wikiquote
• Ukraine in Maps: Tracking the War with Russia | BBC News
• Gaza Strip in Maps: How a Year of War Has Drastically Changed Life in the Territory | BBC News
• Napoleonic Marshals of France | French Empire

SHOW NOTES

• [00:06:14] Expelled from Cranleigh school.
• [00:07:14] Why MI6 considered Andrew for recruitment.
• [00:09:56] The teacher who made history exciting to 10-year-old Andrew.
• [00:13:05] Words Andrew avoids when writing about history.
• [00:14:20] Are steady-nerved leaders naturally born or nurtured?
• [00:16:05] The thinkers who influenced Winston Churchill and his sense of noblesse oblige.
• [00:18:26] What made Napoleon Bonaparte the prime exemplar of war leadership?
• [00:24:37] Lessons from Winston Churchill’s autobiography, My Early Life.
• [00:26:22] Napoleon’s relationship with risk.
• [00:29:26] Andrew’s signed letter from Aldous Huxley.
• [00:30:49] When historical figures carry a sense of personal destiny.
• [00:33:07] The meeting Andrew wishes he could’ve witnessed as a fly on the wall.
• [00:34:30] When historical villains carry a sense of personal destiny.
• [00:37:14] What Churchill and Napoleon learned from their mistakes.
• [00:39:38] “Dear Diary…”
• [00:44:00] Maintaining creative flow during the writing process.
• [00:47:18] On working with brilliant publisher Stuart Proffitt (aka Professor Perfect).
• [00:52:53] Why are some significant figures immortalized while others go the way of Ozymandias?
• [00:57:59] Thoughts on personal legacy.
• [00:59:18] Fiction favorites.
• [01:02:05] Being objective about the history of imperialism.
• [01:03:31] The challenges of teaching and learning history today.
• [01:06:40] Why “Study history” is Andrew’s coat of arms motto.
• [01:10:22] What Andrew, as a history expert, sees for the future.
• [01:14:01] Counteracting natural pessimism.
• [01:15:34] What to expect from Andrew’s latest book Conflict (co-authored with David Petraeus).
• [01:19:21] Upcoming book projects.
• [01:20:26] Parting thoughts.

MORE ANDREW ROBERTS QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“I don’t think I’m the first person ever as a young man to get drunk and climb up buildings … It led to one of my wife’s most brilliant witticisms. She said, ‘And all Andrew’s done since in life is to get drunk and social climb.’”
— Andrew Roberts

“When I feel pessimism for America, it’s for things like taking the Thomas Jefferson statue down from the New York City Hall. It’s a form of cultural suicide. It strikes me not to admire the founders of your nation. And yes, of course he owned slaves, but he also wrote a constitution that has survived for a quarter of a millennium and he was brave enough, and Washington and all the others, brave enough to stand up against the most powerful empire in the world. These things, you deserve your statue, it seems to me. And if you go around pulling these things down, I think you’re breaking a living link with the past that makes you a great country.”
— Andrew Roberts

“I find it very relaxing and calming to think that my life isn’t just going to be a complete waste of time. And one of the only ways that I can justify this concept that it’s all not just a nihilistic maelstrom is by writing books, obviously, which I hope will survive me. But also, noting down what I’ve done in the day.”
— Andrew Roberts

“As soon as you think you understand a period, all it takes is one new set of papers or a new book written by somebody else that can make you look again at the same period and completely change your mind about it. And that’s a little unnerving at the age of 61, I have to say.”
— Andrew Roberts

“I’m a bit of a pessimist anyway because I’m a Tory and pessimism is an essential part of Toryism.”
— Andrew Roberts

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Benjamin Disraeli, the Earl of Beaconsfield
Susan Gilchrist
James Bond
Cookie Monster
Christopher Perry
Charles I
Oliver Cromwell
Elizabeth I
Mary, Queen of Scots
Robert Caro
Niall Ferguson
Napoleon Bonaparte
Winston Churchill
Julius Caesar
Alexander the Great
Edward Gibbon
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Arthur Schopenhauer
Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Sir Francis Drake
Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
Randolph Churchill
Jeanette Spencer-Churchill
Aldous Huxley
Adolf Hitler
Neville Chamberlain
George VI
Claus von Stauffenberg
David Koresh
Jim Jones
Xi Jinping
Benjamin Netanyahu
Joe Biden
Louis XVI
Samuel Johnson
Stuart Proffitt
Herodotus
Abraham Lincoln
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Robert Goddard
William Boyd
Salman Rushdie
Robert Harris
Michel Houellebecq
Henry VIII
Denzel Washington
Sherlock Holmes
Eleanor Rigby
Ronald Hutton
Simon Roberts
Edward I
Elizabeth II
Warren Hastings
Nelson Mandela
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Thomas More
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford
William Wallace
George III
Thomas Jefferson
P.G. Wodehouse
David H. Petraeus
Matthew Ridgway

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