History:Andrew Roberts wrote not so long ago in the Spectatormagazine of his misfortune in being "assaulted by a National Treasure".
The treasure in question was Alan Bennett, whose weapon of choice was the film version of his smash-hit play, The History Boys, the tale of two teachers - Hector, who loves knowledge for its own sake, and Irwin, who thinks what matters is turning any received wisdom on its head - as they battle for the hearts, minds and (as it turns out) bodies of their brightest students.
Bennett publicly identified Roberts as one of his models for the contrarian Irwin. But he chose the wrong target. Alan Bennett will not like the conservative politics of this book. Yet even he might admit that in its imaginative flair, command of language and above all its sheer reach, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900is a book that the ebullient Hector would have enthusiastically urged upon his young charges.
Winston Churchill's famous History of the English-Speaking Peoples - a collective history of Britain, the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the British West Indies and Ireland- concluded in 1900. Roberts picks up the story where Churchill left off. In true Churchillian fashion, he presents his case as a dramatic tale in which adversity gives way to triumph. His is a story of three heroic wars - against the Kaiser's Germany, the Third Reich and the Soviet Union - in defence of the liberal system; of the benefits of capitalism, equality before the law, and "fair play" exported around the globe; and of how the English language itself became the world's mother tongue.
Roberts presents this story with his customary verve and wit; A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900is not just an important book, it is a swashbuckling and often poignant one, too.
Yet this is not a volume written to appease an Irish audience. Roberts points out in his introduction that, "as the dominant world political culture since 1900, the English-speaking peoples would be constantly envied and often hated, which far from being anything perturbing has been the inescapable lot of all hegemonic powers since the days of Ancient Rome".
Of those who "envied and hated" from within the English-speaking world, Ireland wins Roberts's first prize.
"Throughout the period covered by this book, the experience of Ireland, or at least the southern 26 of the island's 32 counties, seems to run contrary to that of the rest of the English-speaking peoples," he argues. "It provided the exception to every rule, disrupted every generalisation and pursued so different a route from the rest of the English-speaking peoples so often that it must be considered quite apart from the rest."
Given that Roberts concludes that "the rest" made up a "decent, honest, fair-minded and self-sacrificing imperium", Ireland's distinctiveness is not something that draws his admiration.
Intriguingly, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900also provides a glimpse of an alternative narrative for Ireland's 20th-century story. The book begins with the visit to Ireland by Queen Victoria in April 1900. Her courtier, Sir Frederick Ponsonby, later recalled that "although I have seen many visits of this kind, nothing has ever approached the enthusiasm and even frenzy displayed by the people of Dublin".
A dismayed Arthur Griffiths wrote afterwards, "We have learnt a strange and bitter lesson; let it not be lost upon us. There is much to be done to absolve the land from the treachery of the last weeks." Two years later, when King Edward VII visited Dublin, the only serious act of protest came when Maud Gonne hung a black petticoat out of her window.
From the standpoint of the early 1900s, it was far from inevitable that Ireland would follow Roberts's "so different a route from the rest of the English-speaking peoples".
A century has passed since that time when it was cheers all the way for a visiting British monarch. For the story of what happened meanwhile, Andrew Roberts provides a compelling - and distinctively British - guide to the story of the English-speaking peoples.
Richard Aldous is head of history and archives at UCD. His most recent book, The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli, is published by Hutchinson
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 By Andrew Roberts Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 736pp. £25