Blood, Class and Empire: The Enduring Anglo-American Relationship

"Since the end of the Cold War, so-called experts have been predicting the eclipse of America's "special relationship" with Britain. On the eve of George Bush taking office, a BBC reporter wrote, "Tony Blair and Bill Clinton are clearly soul mates. John Major and the original George Bush got on like a house on fire. And before that there was the most passionate of them all, between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. But it is a pretty safe bet that the relationship between Mr. Blair and George W. Bush will not be one of these matches made in heaven."" "But as events have shown, especially in the wake of 9/11, the political and cultural ties between America and Britain have grown stronger. The alliance between the United States and Britain during Operation Iraqi Freedom is probably the most obvious example. But even on trivial terrain - the enormous popularity of the new Mini Cooper, the growing audience for BBC news, the abiding interest in Churchilliana and the royal family - the signs of endurance are overwhelming." Blood, Class and Empire examines the dynamics of this relationship, its many cultural manifestations - the James Bond series, PBS's "Brit Kitsch," Rudyard Kipling and Winston Churchill - and explains why it still persists. Author Christopher Hitchens notes that America's relationship with Britain is usually presented as a matter of tradition, manners, and common culture, sanctified by wartime alliance. But Hitchens shows that the special ingredient in the relationship is a compound of empire, transmitted from an "ancien regime" that has tried to preserve and renew itself thereby. The cultural counterpart to this, he argues, has been a hypocritical attempt by England to play Greece to the American Rome.