609pp. Picador, 2006. $18
Reviewed by Margaret Foley
1.1.07

History and nostalgia are not often a good combination in writing, but A.N. Wilson’s After the Victorians manages to combine the two, creating an interesting, well-written, and meandering look at Great Britain from the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 to the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. A period, in which the British “lost an empire and failed to find a role.”

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Britain was a powerhouse, controlling a quarter of the world’s population and one-fifth of its geography. Within fifty years that empire would be gone, largely undone, ironically, by many of the people and policies that had built it.

Wilson, the author of several novels and works of non-fiction, examines Britain’s decline through a series of studies of people, politics, and culture. After the Victorians is best read as a series of loosely-linked, witty, erudite tales. Wilson introducing or summarizing his argument, mostly leaves the reader to infer, properly, from each chapter.

A core aspect of Wilson’s argument is that Britain, even in decline, has much to offer the rest of the world. The history of the first half of the twentieth century is often viewed through its cataclysms and their sources, pushing aside the important—and positive—role Britain played. “[I]n the years when other countries of the world had their civil wars, their Gulags, their Dachaus, and their Kristallnachts, it was the conservative, monarchical aristocratic Britain which maintained a political idea of personalized freedom, not merely for its own citizens, but also for foreign refugees to its shores and those in other lands who fought for freedom.”

Winston Churchill is unarguably the book’s protagonist; his biography and personality neatly illuminate Wilson’s thesis about power and decline. Churchill often initiated and implemented policies that initially increased Britain’s power but later led to its demise. Churchill is remembered as a military leader, yet was responsible for the doomed, failed, disastrous, suicidal Gallipoli expedition. His political solution in the 1920s to British hegemony in the Middle East was to establish modern Iraq. Even in his heyday as the leader of wartime Britain, he made many decisions, which if followed through, such as a plan to defend France with RAF planes or pushing to open a second front before it was feasible, would have been disastrous.

In light of current politics, it is fascinating to read Wilson’s analysis of the “Special Relationship” between the United States and Britain. While few people would dispute the enormous power and clout wielded by Winston Churchill, Wilson has a largely negative view of Britain’s interactions with the United States. “The Special Relationship” of the 1940s in part resembled some outwardly successful marriages: an abusive relationship in which Britain was decidedly the junior partner.” Wilson argues that much of what defined American success after World War II was in part due to British underpinnings, in the sharing of scientific information, intelligence, and resources Britain’s aid was forgotten in the years after the war when the United States methodically planned to rid Britain of the empire that would obstruct“ American hegemony.”

Some of the book’s gems are found in the chapters that analyze cultural trends, showing Wilson’s great skill in taking a small anecdote or historical footnote and placing it in a larger cultural and social context. For example, his chapter on popular culture in the 1920s and 30s argues that the murder mysteries of authors such as Agatha Christie were so popular because an era with people such as Hitler, Mussolini, and Ribbentrop, was undoubtedly heading for a violent end. His analysis of the beginnings of American cultural hegemony is simple, yet revealing. Using the novels of Henry James, he charts how James’ heroines start off as naïve girls duped by their European husbands, yet by the end of James’ career, have turned the tables.

Anyone, who has ever lived in a country that was once part of the British Empire, will undoubtedly have some quibbles with Wilson’s pro-British bias would be better. However, (on another level is the same as the however, it’s the introduction to the alternate opinion.) it is refreshing to read a book in which an author takes his country’s history to task, and after doing so, still finds something worthwhile.

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