The Most British Book I Have Ever Read
My latest review for Foreign Policy.
My latest book review for Foreign Policy, “The Original Authoritarian,” is now online. It is a review of Ferdinand Mount’s Big Caesars and Little Caesars: How They Rise and How They Fall—From Julius Caesar to Boris Johnson.
You’ll have to click over to the FP website to read the whole essay. It would be safe to say, however, that I gave it a mixed review. Mount is a excellent writer — he’s written for the Times Literary Supplement, the Daily Telegraph, and the London Review of Books on a regular basis. He seems like a genuinely decent human being. It’s clear that he is utterly appalled by what Brexit in general and Boris Johnson in particular have wrought for his country of Great Britain. The aim of the book — to explore what makes aspiring Caesars tick and what leads to their downfall — is a noble one. The book has been well-reviewed on both sides of the Atlantic.
I confess, however that the book didn’t work as well on me, for a few reasons. The first was “[Mount’s] barely concealed desire to intellectually murder Johnson just to watch him die.” To be fair, I suspect British readers — especially those who had to endure the rise and fall of BoJo — probably enjoyed the long sections devoted to Caesar-ish moments in British history more than I did. And I have absolutely zero sympathy for Boris Johnson. For this American, however, there was a point after which, as someone who does not reside in the United KIngdom, I started thinking, “I get the point, please move on.”
The bigger problem is when Mount moves on to the United States. I’ll just excerpt from my review here:
Unfortunately, when Mount crosses the pond to train his eye on the United States’ little Caesar, Trump, other flaws emerge. Like many English writers, Mount presents an air of political savvy about U.S. politics—but the moment that Big Caesars and Little Caesars tries to get specific about the United States, his grasp fades.
He writes, “In the United States, voter suppression is widespread and of long standing – sufficiently so to be referred to simply as VS.” I have taught political science for more than a quarter-century, and I have never once heard that acronym used for that purpose; my Americanist friends were also baffled.
Mount also claims that Trump’s first travel ban applied to “immigrants from most Muslim nations.” That executive order, while bigoted and counterproductive, was limited to seven countries; the Organization of Islamic Cooperation counts 57 member states. Mount concludes that what made Trump’s presidency unique was his nonstop campaigning and chaotic governing style, betraying his ignorance of Andrew Jackson’s 19th-century rise to the presidency.
Mount’s saddest error is when he dismisses Trump’s current campaign pledge to fire many executive branch bureaucrats because “no conceivable U.S. Congress would pass such a law.” That may be true, but it is also irrelevant; as president, Trump’s ability to run roughshod over the civil service was viable enough to prompt considerable discussion inside the Beltway about its implications. The threat now is big enough that the Biden administration has taken actions to make it more difficult for presidential successors to do what Trump wants to do.
If you can, please do read the whole thing.