Posted on 12/25/2015 5:45:29 AM PST by Kaslin
Biography is one way -- often the most vivid way -- in which people understand history. The beautifully written biographies of Franklin Roosevelt that rolled off the presses and rose in the bestseller lists in the 1950s and 1960s created a template in which the New Deal was central to American history. It was the culmination of what happened before the 1930s and the model for what should and would happen next.
That model was undermined by the success of four-time Roosevelt voter Ronald Reagan, but the idea that every bigger government is beneficial and inevitable continues to be accepted by many on the left.
Three biographies published over the last year, each by a British author with deep understanding of America (two of them live here), point in a different direction. They are Andrew Roberts' "Napoleon: A Life," Niall Ferguson's "Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist," and the second of three volumes of Charles Moore's authorized biography of Margaret Thatcher.
Unlike FDR, all three subjects can, to varying degrees, be described as conservative. That characterization is more debatable in the case of Napoleon, who rose from corporal to general to emperor in the wake of the French Revolution. But Roberts shows how Bonaparte tamed the French Revolution, with a whiff of grapeshot, clever political maneuvering and an astonishing mixture of energy and insight.
And he shows how Napoleon created enduring public institutions. He spread the revolution's metric system throughout Europe and ultimately most of the word. His Napoleonic Code remains the basis of law in continental Europe and many of its former colonies. He achieved for a decade a united Europe, the vision of which inspired creation of the European Union.
Many Americans wouldn't characterize Kissinger as a conservative, either, given his support of detente with the Soviet Union and opening to Communist China. But Ferguson shows how Kissinger, from his days as a sergeant in postwar Germany, tempered his severe analysis of facts on the ground with a fine appreciation of national histories and a conviction that idealism must undergird American foreign policy.
Ferguson ends this first volume with Richard Nixon's astonishing appointment of Kissinger as National Security Adviser. But Kissinger, deeply involved in Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administration policymaking, had already developed not only trenchant critiques of their current policies, especially on Vietnam, but also impressive adroitness in bureaucratic infighting.
About Margaret Thatcher no one would quibble with the label conservative, with a capital "C." Moore's first volume showed her beginnings as a partisan activist rather than intellectual critic and describes how her womanliness was central to the character and career of someone her opponents and critics considered a warrior.
This second volume, subtitled "Everything She Wants," shows once again that she was not as dogmatic a leader as many observers believed in the 1980s and as she herself suggested after being booted out of office in 1990. She compromised and temporized and took time to prepare for major policy changes and confrontations.
All three of these more or less conservative leaders came from humble circumstances in provincial backwaters. Roberts, Ferguson and Moore deftly paint vivid pictures of their roots in Corsica, in Grantham in England's Midlands, in the industrial town of Furth in Bavaria. Napoleon spoke with an Italian accent, Kissinger with a German accent and Thatcher took voice coaching.
The biographers show how their subjects bloomed at Saint-Cyr, France's military academy, and at Oxford and Harvard. They show how quickly they built sophisticated views of the world and of the nations they came to love. They show how they made their way upward in the tangle of politics and turmoil of unsettled times.
Not all of their achievements proved lasting. Napoleon was sent into exile in St. Helena (at age 46!). Kissinger, though still active at 92, has not held public office in 38 years; Thatcher was ousted by rebellion in the party she led to three landslide victories.
But many of their achievements endure. The Napoleonic Code still governs Europe. Kissinger's China policy, though attacked by many presidential candidates, remains in place for a fifth decade. Britain will never renationalize privatized industries or reverse private ownership of former public housing.
In their biographies Roberts, Ferguson and Moore demonstrate that history does not move in just one direction. Gifted conservative-minded leaders from obscure backgrounds, such as Napoleon, Kissinger and Thatcher, can shift events from their apparent course as effectively as such liberals as Franklin Roosevelt.
Bttt
Kissinger as a ‘conservative’ kills the deal right there IMHO.
Its probably a good time to look back at Kissinger’s policy, which was packaged and promoted as making the world a more peaceful place in relation to the Soviets.
Kept under wraps 40 years ago because it didn’t fit the narrative were actions like the Angolan Civil War where the US backed South African forces working with the rebels fighting the Cuban forces and the Soviet backed government.
Here we are 40 years later involved in the Syrian Civil War backing one side against another. The Necon-New Rockefeller Republicans in the Kissinger mold are up front about the policy as an anti-Iranian one.
But just like deals were done with the Soviets in 1975 like the Helsinki Accord signed by Kissinger acknowledging Soviet control of Eastern Europe a deal was done with Iran this year to allow them to develop nuclear weapons. The Neocon descendants of Kissinger in the GOP enabled it with the Corker Bill.
In the 1970’s with the Soviet Union as it is with Iran today economic activity-trade with both countries was behind the policy, packaged as détente and better relations with the Soviets then, now packaged as a policy to oppose Iran and confront it as an enemy.
The policy of the Republican Establishment hasn’t changed, just the way its packaged and promoted.
[Because of Thatcher ... Britain will never renationalize privatized industries or reverse private ownership of former public housing]
So what? For all her brilliance and energy, the heroic Thatcher could do nothing about the deadly albatross called the National Health Service. With socialized medicine vacuuming up the whole government, the Brit military has declined to next to nothing. More kids volunteer for ISIS than the UK army.
Now we have socialized medicine here in the United States. It shows how even the greatest conservatives (Reagan, Thatcher) cannot roll back the tide of greedy, grasping government.
Kissinger held “a conviction that idealism must undergird American foreign policy.”
The first volume of Moore’s biography of Thatcher was excellent. I look forward to the 2nd volume.
First volume:
http://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Thatcher-From-Grantham-Falklands/dp/0307958949
“Margaret Thatcher: From Grantham to the Falklands”
Second volume, coming out January 5:
http://www.amazon.com/Margaret-Thatcher-Zenith-London-Washington-ebook/dp/B00XG95GG0/
“Margaret Thatcher: At Her Zenith: In London, Washington and Moscow”
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