Sixty Joyless De-Britished Uncrowned Commonpoor Years (1949-2009)

Elizabeth II Vice-Regal Saint: Remembering Paul Comtois (1895–1966), Lt.-Governor of Québec
Britannic Inheritance: Britain's proud legacy. What legacy will America leave?
English Debate: Daniel Hannan revels in making mince meat of Gordon Brown
Crazy Canucks: British MP banned from Canada on national security grounds
Happy St. Patrick's: Will Ireland ever return to the Commonwealth?
Voyage Through the Commonwealth: World cruise around the faded bits of pink.
No Queen for the Green: The Green Party of Canada votes to dispense with monarchy.
"Sir Edward Kennedy": The Queen has awarded the senator an honorary Knighthood.
President Obama: Hates Britain, but is keen to meet the Queen?
The Princess Royal: Princess Anne "outstanding" in Australia.
H.M.S. Victory: In 1744, 1000 sailors went down with a cargo of gold.
Queen's Commonwealth: Britain is letting the Commonwealth die.
Justice Kirby: His support for monarchy almost lost him appointment to High Court
Royal Military Academy: Sandhurst abolishes the Apostles' Creed.
Air Marshal Alec Maisner, R.I.P. Half Polish, half German and 100% British.
Cherie Blair: Not a vain, self regarding, shallow thinking viper after all.
Harry Potter: Celebrated rich kid thinks the Royals should not be celebrated
The Royal Jelly: A new king has been coronated, and his subjects are in a merry mood
Victoria Cross: Australian TROOPER MARK DONALDSON awarded the VC
Godless Buses: Royal Navy veteran, Ron Heather, refuses to drive his bus
Labour's Class War: To expunge those with the slightest pretensions to gentility
100 Top English Novels of All Time: The Essential Fictional Library
BIG BEN: Celebrating 150 Years of the Clock Tower

Saturday 17 February 2007

The English-Speaking Century

by Keith Windschuttle

In the past one hundred years, four successive political movements—Prussian militarism, German Nazism, Japanese imperialism, and international Communism—mounted military campaigns to conquer Europe, Asia, and the world. Had any of them prevailed, it would have been a profound loss for civilization as we know it. Yet over the course of these bids for power, a coalition headed first by Britain and then by the United States emerged not just to oppose but to destroy them utterly.

From the long perspective of human affairs, these victories must stand as among the most remarkable of the past three millennia. They were as decisive for world history as the victories of the ancient Greeks over Persia, of Rome over Carthage, and of the Franks over the Umayyad Caliphate.

Continue reading The English-speaking century...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. Windschuttle,
Thank you for your attractive and well-looking blog. I have read the review in your first post, and I must confess to being troubled by some things. I do agree that the history of the English-speaking world up until the time of Churchill was on the whole honorable in its conduct, and admirable, as you point out, in defeating the four tyrannous threats that you mentioned. But it is the post-1960's period that increasingly troubles me, in the sense that I feel that Western man shows signs of having abandoned the ethical guidelines of the Christian religion (despite lip- service to it, esp. in the US), the sense of proportion and even reason (e.g. consider the fanatic attacks of the Darwinists against Intelligent Design). There seems to be increasing suffocation of the mind, demonization of enemies, narrowness of vision, and inability to address considerable challenges realistically. So, Sir, what I am saying is that while I feel in sympathy to the thesis of the book, I wonder also if the author has considered in all gravity the seeming abyss that separates the pre-1960 era from what has come after it.
I would be most honored if you would visit my blog and read my recent piece, "Dissing Toynbee" - I'd be interested to hear what you have to say about Toynbee, a historian I much admire.
http://from-the-catacombs.blogspot.com/2007/02/dissing-toynbee.html

The Monarchist said...

Caryl, Mr. Windschuttle doesn't blog here; I am merely linking to his work over at the New Criterion. If you are interested more in this Australian writer and thinker, you will find him at the Quadrant magazine or at sydneyline.com where he consolidates all of his work.

By the way, I agree that Chesterton can hardly be thought of as obscurantist. Chesterton is truth and irony melded into one.

Anonymous said...

Chesterton is more, sir. He is almost a prophet of God. And as is with the fate of prophets of God, they are not accepted in their own country.

Alas for England.

Alba go bragh!
Erin go bragh!
Free Wales!
Free Cornwall!