The Churchill Complex: The Curse of Being Special, from Winston and FDR to Trump and Brexit

As an American who loves Britain and loves to follow the modern political history of both countries, I found this book to be super interesting. From Churchill/Roosevelt to B Johnson/Trump, the author offers great, witty, often sarcastic insight into the ups and downs of the Special Relationship. He doesn’t hold back his own opinions. Not at all. He really can’t stand B Johnson and Trump, which made the book that more enjoyable.

Ian Buruma in the Churchill Complex charts the special relationship between British Prime Ministers and American Presidents from roughly WW2 to present. But rather then it being strictly a Churchill Complex, I consider this book more of an examination of the British trying to play a meaningful role in global affairs from 1945-present through relationships with American presidents. Churchill himself is either vaguely in the shadows or curiously non-existent throughout much of the book. But the period he lived seems very much alive. The second curious thing about this book revolves around the “special relationship” the UK and the US have with each other. For such a special relationship, it has sure seemed to be quite rocky at points in time as individual leaders have failed to connect mostly because of variations in personality and or background. But what sticks out in every chapter is Britain grasping to have a substantial role in a world that rivals even in a small way where they where in the time of Churchill. It\’s a very useful examination of the personalistic US-UK relationship, just not something that one might’ve expected out of a book called the Churchill Complex.

This book is not about Churchill, ecept it begins with him. it is about the United Kingdom since World War II and how it is adjusting to no longer being a world power. The book begins with Churchill and goes through all Prime Ministers since up to Boris Johnson.. Its premise is the UK is no longer a world power and the difficulty in accepting this. The loss of the empire is accepted by all except Churchill, but the author fells the remedy is greater integration in Europe. This was accepted by some Prime Ministers to varying degrees but now with Brixit and Johnson it has become a major issue. The author favors the UK integration in Europe.. To remedy Britains loss of world power status Prime Ministers to varying degrees have emphasized Britains special relationship with the US. The author clearly doesn\’t think to much of this. I found this book well written and a pleasure to read.

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