Piers Brendon reviews Richard Toye's upcoming book, Churchill's Empire: The World that Made Him and the World He Made in the Literary Review:
The Empire, indeed, was the main bone of contention between Churchill and Roosevelt during the war. The President found it hard to believe that they were fighting Axis tyranny but not working to free people all over the world from colonial oppression. He openly disagreed with Churchill's assertion that the promises of self-government in the Atlantic Charter did not apply to the British Empire. The Prime Minister thought it was 'pretty good cheek' for the Americans, who had blood on their hands in the Philippines, to try 'to school-marm us into proper behaviour' in the Empire. And with the Empire behind him, he felt able to stand up to the Great Republic. According to Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt's plea that India should be allowed to rule itself wrung from Churchill a 'string of cuss words [that] lasted for two hours in the middle of the night'.
Young Winston had vowed to devote his life to the maintenance of the British Empire. As warlord during the struggle against Hitler he fought to preserve it even though that meant testing the Anglo-American alliance, which he also championed. As an old man he lamented that his life had been for nothing: 'The Empire I believed in has gone.' In view of all that it is remarkable that no substantial scholarly work on this subject has hitherto appeared. There have been essays and a couple of partial studies, and the topic has been aired in some of the many volumes about Churchill published since the opening and electronic cataloguing of his papers. But Churchill's Empire is the first book to cover all the ground. It does so in a masterly fashion, drawing on much fresh evidence, teasing out the nuances of Churchill's attitudes and providing a marvellously illuminating appraisal.
Well, at least and at last, Churchill has something in common with Charles de Gaulle, but should we expected that men who grew in times when empire is synonymous not to say equaled to their nation's grandeur are reluctant to give it up and to see decolonization as a plus?
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