Andrew Roberts, Baron Roberts of Belgravia (born 13 January 1963), 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 was a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, London, from 2013 to 2021.

Roberts's historical research has focused mostly on English-speaking nations, particularly those closely tied socially to the United Kingdom, such as the United States. Roberts is known internationally for his 2009 book The Storm of War, which covers socio-political factors of the Second World War, such as Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the administrative organisation of Nazi Germany. It received the British Army Military Book of the Year Award for 2010, and achieved commercial success, reaching No. 2 on The Sunday Times best-seller list. Much of Roberts's later work, including his 2014 and 2018 biographies of Napoleon and Sir Winston Churchill, has been widely praised. Roberts's public commentary has additionally appeared in several British publications, such as The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, including his support for Atlanticism within international relations.

Early life and education

Andrew Roberts was born in Hammersmith, London, on 13 January 1963, the son of Kathleen () and Simon Roberts, a business executive. Simon, from Cobham, Surrey, inherited the Job's Dairy milk business and also owned the British franchise of Kentucky Fried Chicken. A prolific reader as a child, Roberts soon gained a passion for history, particularly for dramatic works relating to "battles, wars, assassinations and death".

Roberts attended Cranleigh School in Surrey and read modern history at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association. 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.

Historical and socio-political viewpoints

Commentary on history

In the context of the First World War, Roberts believes that the treaty obligations imposed on the German Empire should have been significantly tougher. He has stated 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's opinion, at a truly devastating cost. In the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, Roberts backed the "Leave" vote.

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 Anglosphere nations. As an advocate for the general principle of democratic pluralism, he has argued that "[s]neered at for being 'simplistic' in his reaction to 9/11, Bush's visceral responses to the attacks of a fascistic, totalitarian death cult will be seen as having been substantially the right ones" in the long run. In many writings, he has come out in support of neo-conservative influenced socio-political viewpoints.

In 2003 Roberts wrote: "For Churchill, apotheosis came in 1940; for Tony Blair, it will come when Iraq is successfully invaded and hundreds of weapons of mass destruction are unearthed from where they have been hidden by Saddam's henchmen." When such weapons were not found, Roberts still defended the invasion for larger strategic reasons, while arguing that his past views were based on credible assessments from intelligence services as well as other sources.

Political opinions

Roberts endorsed Kemi Badenoch in the 2024 Conservative Party leadership election.

Authorship and television appearances

Early works

The first of Roberts's books was a biography of the Earl of Halifax, Foreign Secretary to Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill, entitled The Holy Fox, and published in 1991.

In 1999 Roberts published Salisbury: Victorian Titan, a biography of the Victorian-era prime minister the Marquess of Salisbury. The historian Michael Korda praised the work as "a masterpiece about one of the greatest and most able Tory political figures of the Victorian age".

Also in 2003, Roberts became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Masters and Commanders describes how four figures shaped the strategy of the West during the Second World War. It was published in November 2008 and won the International Churchill Society Book Award and was shortlisted for two other military history book prizes. and The Wall Street Journal, where the historian Jonathan W. Jordan said that Roberts "splendidly weaves a human tragedy into a story". Support also came from figures such as the American political commentator Peter Robinson and the English historian Paul Johnson. In the book Roberts aims to paint a concise yet highly detailed picture of the conflict in which he argues that Joseph Stalin and 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. 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.

Praise additionally came from the 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!" as well as from Donald Adamson in Napoleon at Elba. The 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."

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." 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".

Churchill biography

In 2018 Roberts produced a biography of Churchill entitled Churchill: Walking with Destiny. Dovetailing with Roberts's 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." 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."

For The New York Times, Richard Aldous commented: "All told, it must surely be the best single-volume biography of Churchill yet written." 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."

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.

Since 1990 Roberts has addressed hundreds of institutional and academic audiences in many countries, including a lecture to the former US president George W. Bush at the White House. A monarchist, Roberts described Prince Philip upon his death in 2021 as "undoubtedly... one of the reasons that the overwhelming majority of Britons today feel blessed that their country is a monarchy". He has appeared on US television during royal funerals and weddings. He first came to prominence in the United States for his expert commentary on the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997, and he was later in a similar role during the CNN broadcast of the death of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and on the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla Parker Bowles. In 2003 he presented The Secrets of Leadership, a four-part history series on BBC Two about the secrets of leadership which looked at the different leadership styles of Churchill, Hitler, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. Roberts is a director of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation in New York City, a founder member of José Maria Aznar's Friends of Israel Initiative, and chaired the Hessell-Tiltman Award for Non-Fiction in 2010. he chaired the Conservative Party's Advisory Panel on the Teaching of History in Schools in 2005. He has also been elected a Fellow of the Napoleonic Institute and an Honorary Member of the International Churchill Society. He is a trustee of the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust and of the Roberts Foundation. He has additionally spoken in many other American universities such as the University of Montana.

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, The Economist drew attention to some historical, geographical, and typographical errors, as well as presenting a generally scathing review. It referred to the work as "a giant political pamphlet larded with its author's prejudices". Roberts has been accused of celebrating western colonialism and imperialism in his books.

Personal life

Roberts is divorced from his first wife, Camilla Henderson, with whom he had two children. Roberts is married to Susan Gilchrist, chief executive officer of the corporate communications firm Brunswick Group LLP and chairman of the South Bank Centre. Lord and Lady Roberts live in London. On 1 November 2022 he was created Baron Roberts of Belgravia, in the City of Westminster.

See also

  • List of alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
  • List of Wolfson History Prize winners

Bibliography

Books

  • The Holy Fox: A Biography of Lord Halifax, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991, ; Head of Zeus, 2014 .
  • Eminent Churchillians, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1994, ; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995, .
  • The Aachen Memorandum, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995, .
  • Salisbury: Victorian Titan, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999, .
  • The House of Windsor (A Royal History of England), London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000, ; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000, .
  • Napoleon and Wellington, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001, ; Napoleon and Wellington: The Battle of Waterloo and the Great Commanders Who Fought It, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002, .
  • Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003, .
  • What Might Have Been: Leading Historians on Twelve 'What Ifs' of History (editor), London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004, .
  • Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble, London: HarperCollins, 2005, ; Waterloo: June 18, 1815. The Battle for Modern Europe, New York: Harper, 2005, .
  • A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006, ; New York: Harper, 2007, .
  • Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West, London: Allen Lane, 2008, ; Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941–1945, New York: Harper, 2009, . online
  • The Art of War: Great Commanders of the Ancient and Medieval Worlds 1600 BC-AD 1600 (editor), London: Quercus, 2008 ; New York: Quercus, 2008, .
  • The Art of War: Great Commanders of the Modern World Since 1600 (editor), London: Quercus, 2009 ; New York: Quercus, 2009, .
  • The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, London: Allen Lane, 2009, ; New York: Harper, 2011 . online
  • Love, Tommy: Letters Home, from the Great War to the Present Day, London: Osprey Publishing, 2012, .
  • Napoleon the Great, London: Allen Lane, 2014 ; Napoleon: A Life, New York: Viking Press, 2014, .
  • Elegy: The First Day on the Somme, London: Head of Zeus, 2015, .
  • Churchill: Walking with Destiny, London: Allen Lane, 2018, ; New York: Viking, 2018, .
  • Leadership in War: Lessons from Those Who Made History, London: Allen Lane, 2019, ; Leadership in War: Essential Lessons from Those Who Made History, New York: Viking, 2019, .
  • George III: The Life and Reign of Britain's Most Misunderstood Monarch, Allen Lane, 2021, ; The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III, New York: Viking, 2021, ). BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, 4–8 October 2021, read by Ben Miller.
  • The Chief: The Life of Lord Northcliffe Britain's Greatest Press Baron, London: Simon and Schuster, 2022, .
  • Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine (with David Petraeus), London: William Collins, 2023, ; New York: Harper, 2023, .

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's work

;Napoleon the Great

References

  • Official website
  • Andrew Roberts, "Secrets of Leadership: Hitler and Churchill", History, BBC, 17 February 2011.
  • Sebastian Shakespeare, "Andrew Roberts is the social historian", Evening Standard, 5 August 2009.