Andrew Roberts, Baron Roberts of Belgravia

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Lord Temporal
Assumed office
1 November 2022
Life peerage
Personal details
Born (1963-01-13) 13 January 1963 (age 61)
Hammersmith, London, England
Political partyConservative
Spouses
  • Camilla Henderson
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1995; div. 2001)​
    PhD)
Occupation
  • Historian
  • journalist
AwardsWolfson History Prize (2000)
Websiteandrew-roberts.net

Andrew Roberts, Baron Roberts of Belgravia,

member of the House of Lords.[4] He is the 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 served as a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery from 2013 to 2021.[5][6]

Roberts' historical research has focused mostly on

Second World War such as Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the administrative organisation of Nazi Germany. The work received the British Army Military Book of the Year Award for 2010 as well. It achieved commercial success, reaching the No. 2 slot on The Sunday Times best-seller list.[8] Much of Roberts' later work, including his 2014 and 2018 biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte and of Winston Churchill, has been widely praised. Roberts' public commentary has additionally appeared in several UK-based publications such as The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, with his support for Atlanticist views in terms of international relations
.

Early life and education

Roberts was born in

Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets. A prolific reader as a child, Andrew Roberts soon gained a passion for history, particularly for dramatic works relating to "battles, wars, assassinations and death".[3]

Roberts attended

modern history.[12][13] 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.[14]

Historical and socio-political viewpoints

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Commentary on history

In the context of the

First World War, Roberts determines that the treaty obligations imposed on the German Empire should have been significantly tougher. He has specifically proclaimed that the victorious powers of the Entente alliance should have broken up Germany into component sub-national territories akin to the disorganised situation prior to the unification of Germany in the mid-1800s. Ultranationalism was eventually "burned out of the German soul", in Roberts' opinion, at a truly devastating cost.[9]

Roberts' analysis of the

Second World War has 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 the dictator 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. Roberts has concluded that the likely morale-building victories against the comparatively weak forces to the southeast could have allowed Hitler to essentially win the war.

According to Roberts, the other key strategic mistake was the

Pearl Harbor attacks despite the fact that the Nazi regime had no legal obligation to take such an action. Roberts has stated that, after the declaration, Germany could not keep the U.S. war-making economic machine at bay.[9] Thus, in his view, the mistakes, delusions, and exaggerated self-confidence complexes that the fascist government fostered proved its undoing.[15]

Roberts has additionally stated that he views Joseph Stalin's control of the Soviet Armed Forces as having been disastrous to the allied efforts against the Axis powers. He has commented 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.[9]

In terms of more recent history, Roberts has whole-heartedly embraced

War against Terror", which would leave him regarded as a "highly successful prime minister".[16] In the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, Roberts backed the "Leave" vote.[17]

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

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".[18]

In 2003, Roberts wrote: "For Churchill, apotheosis came in 1940; for

intelligence services as well as other sources.[21]

Authorship and television appearances

Early works

The first of Roberts' books was the biography of

Munich Crisis.[citation needed] This work was followed in 1994 by Eminent Churchillians, a collection of essays about friends and enemies of Churchill.[14] A large part of the book is an attack on Admiral of the Fleet the 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.[citation needed
]

In 1995, Roberts published

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."[22]

In 1999, Roberts published

Weidenfeld and Nicolson, and was the subject of the lead review in all but one of Britain's national newspapers.[citation needed
]

January 2003 saw the publication of Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership.

BBC2,[14] with its first episode being broadcast on 7 March 2013.[19] 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, Roberts became a

Anne Somerset.[14] In 2005, Roberts published Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble, which was published in America as Waterloo: The Battle for Modern Europe.[14]

His A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900, a sequel to the

Jonathan Sumption, and Felipe Fernández-Armesto, working under the general editorship of Roberts.[citation needed
]

Overview of the Second World War

Second World War and various key elements within it such as the nature of Nazi Germany's rule, the book received large popular success[9] 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.[8]

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",[15] and The Wall Street Journal, where historian Jonathan W. Jordan said that Roberts "splendidly weaves a human tragedy into a story".[24] 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.[9]

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 de Beauharnais. 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.[25]

Like The Storm of War, Roberts's life of Napoleon received critical praise from a wide range of publications. In October 2014, journalist Jeremy Jennings wrote for Standpoint 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".[25] 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.[26]

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!"[27] as well as from Donald Adamson in Napoleon at Elba.[28] Author of historical fiction Bernard Cornwell has described the book as "[s]imply 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."[29]

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."[30] The series has had mixed reviews. The Daily Telegraph declared it "unconvincing", saying that "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".[31]

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. For the Financial Times, Toni Barber 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."[32] In The Observer, Andrew Rawnsley included the book among the 'Books of the Year' and said that "Roberts triumphed over my scepticism with his riveting account of the extraordinary life of the most remarkable individual to have lived at No 10."[33]

For The New York Times, Richard Aldous commented: "All told, it must surely be the best single-volume biography of Churchill yet written."[34] The National Book Review said that the book was "widely praised as the best single-volume biography of Winston Churchill ever written", and added that Roberts "draws on previously unavailable journals and notes for the robust, engrossing, and nuanced history of the great British leader."[35]

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.[8] Since 2014 he has featured in several short lecture videos published by the conservative advocacy group PragerU.[36]

Since 1990, Roberts has addressed hundreds of institutional and academic audiences in many countries, including a lecture to former US president

José Maria Aznar's Friends of Israel Initiative, and chaired the Hessell-Tiltman Award for Non-Fiction in 2010.[38]

Roberts is a judge on the

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.[41]

Disputes and criticism

Although Roberts's 2006 work A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900 won critical acclaim from some sections of the media,[42][43] The Economist drew attention to some historical, geographical, and typographical errors, as well as 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".[7] More generally, Reba Soffer described him in 2009 as "devoted ... to public, polemical conservatism as well as to historical revisionism".[44]

One claim made by Roberts in A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900 was that

Kenya Emergency.[47][48]

Journalist

racist when he took on the speaking engagement, despite the apartheid era flag, and the fact that the event was a commemoration of the 36th anniversary of UDI.[49]

Personal life

Roberts is divorced from his first wife, Camilla Henderson, with whom he had two children.

South Bank Centre. Lord and Lady Roberts live in London.[14]

Roberts has worked with think tank organisations such as the Centre for Policy Studies and the Centre for Social Cohesion. He has additionally 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.[14]

It was announced on 14 October 2022 in Boris Johnson's

2022 Political Honours that Roberts would be raised to the peerage as a life baron.[52] On 1 November 2022, he was created Baron Roberts of Belgravia, of Belgravia in the City of Westminster.[53]

See also

Bibliography

Books

Introductions, forewords and other contributions

  • 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

Critical studies and reviews of Roberts' work

Napoleon the Great
  • Adonis, Andrew (21 November 2014). "Boney's bungles". New Statesman. 143 (5237): 45.

References

  1. ^
    doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U32682
    .
  2. ^ Roberts, Andrew (13 May 2009). "How Torture Helped Win WWII". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Marre, Oliver (26 July 2009). "Andrew Roberts: The history man who loves to party". The Observer. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  4. ^ "Contact information for Lord Roberts of Belgravia - MPs and Lords - UK Parliament".
  5. ^ "Andrew Roberts appointed as a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery". Retrieved 26 June 2020.
  6. ^ "The Prime Minister reappoints a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery". Retrieved 15 October 2022.
  7. ^ a b "Going out in the midday sun". The Economist. 2 November 2006. Retrieved 6 December 2022.
  8. ^ a b c d e "Esteemed Military Historian to Lecture at UM". University of Montana. 2 October 2013. Archived from the original on 27 April 2019. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  9. ^ a b c d e f "The Storm of War". Uncommon Knowledge. 6 January 2012. Archived from the original on 12 December 2021. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  10. ^ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
  11. ^ a b Thomas, David (11 February 2003). "Churchill, Hitler and me". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
  12. ^ About Andrew Roberts – Andrew Roberts, British historian, British history writer, Masters and Commanders, A History of the English Speaking Peoples since 1900 |https://www.andrew-roberts.net/about-andrew-roberts/
  13. ^ Andrew Roberts – The Octavian Report | https://octavianreport.com/contributor/andrew-roberts/
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "About Andrew Roberts". Andrew Roberts.net. Retrieved 21 November 2021.
  15. ^ a b c 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.
  16. ^ "How will history judge Blair?". BBC News. 10 May 2007. Retrieved 9 November 2017.
  17. ^ Breakfast with a Brexiteer, 14 September 2019
  18. ^ Roberts, Andrew; Pimlott, Ben (8 March 2003). "The UN: Right or wrong". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  19. ^ a b Seaton, Matt (19 February 2003). "Blast from the past". The Guardian. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  20. ^ Roberts, Andrew (9 March 2005). "Why America Invaded Iraq" (PDF). Assets.ctfassets.net. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
  21. ISSN 0882-7729
    . Retrieved 1 December 2021.
  22. ^ "Schedule - BBC Programme Index". genome.ch.bbc.co.uk.
  23. ^ "Conservative Book of the Year Award".
  24. ^ Jordan, Jonathan W. (2 July 2011). "Hell's Ethos". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  25. ^ a b Jennings, Jeremy (October 2014). "The Enlightenment on Horseback". Standpoint. Archived from the original on 5 October 2016. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  26. ^ "Napoleon". Archived from the original on 3 February 2002. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
  27. ^ "Napoleon by Andrew Roberts: 9780143127857". Penguin Random House. Retrieved 22 November 2021.
  28. FRHistS
    ).
  29. ISBN 978-1846140273
    .
  30. ^ "BBC Two announces new collection of history commissions". BBC Media Centre.
  31. ^ Gerard O'Donovan (17 June 2015). "Napoleon, episode 2, review: 'unconvincing'". The Daily Telegraph.
  32. ^ Barber, Toni (30 November 2018). "Churchill: Walking With Destiny/The Kremlin Letters – correspondents' ball". Financial Times. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  33. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  34. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  35. ^ "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.
  36. ^ "Andrew Roberts | PragerU". www.prageru.com. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
  37. ^ Roberts, Andrew (17 April 2021). "'The Duke is one of the reasons Britons feel blessed to have a monarchy'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  38. ^ a b c "Andrew Roberts". The Octavian Report. Richard Hurowitz. Retrieved 22 November 2021.
  39. ^ "Roberts, Andrew". Royal Society of Literature.
  40. ^ Roberts, Andrew (26 August 2013). "HIST 1502 Great European Leaders of the 19th and 20th Centuries and their Influence on History" (PDF). Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  41. ^ "www.royalhistsoc.org" (PDF).
  42. ^ Daniels, Anthony (2 November 2006). "The case for the defence". The Spectator. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
  43. ^ Massie, Allan (22 October 2006). "Happy is he who speaks English". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 16 April 2010.
  44. ISBN 978-0-19920-811-1
    .
  45. 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.
  46. ^ "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.
  47. ^ "Mau Mau torture victims to receive compensation – Hague". BBC News. 6 June 2013. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
  48. Press Association
    . 6 June 2013. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
  49. ^ "Johann Hari: The dark side of Andrew Roberts". The Independent. 30 July 2009. Retrieved 24 July 2023.
  50. ^ "Andrew Roberts and Camilla Henderson". Tatler. 8 December 1995. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  51. ^ "Burke's Peerage". burkespeerage.com.
  52. ^ "Political Peerages 2022". GOV.UK. 14 October 2022. Retrieved 15 October 2022.
  53. ^ "Lord Roberts of Belgravia". MPs and Lords. UK Parliament. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  54. ^ "BBC Radio 4 – George III by Andrew Roberts". BBC. Retrieved 22 November 2021.

External links

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