Billed as an extended history lesson for British patriots, Bernard Porter's latest book is something of a curiosity. It is an often-rambling mediation on aspects of British history interspersed with criticisms of pro-Brexit politicians’ falsifications and Porter's own contemporary political analysis. Porter is quite open about its having been written while he was cooped up in his home in Sweden during the Covid lockdowns, lacking access to sources. On occasion, it shows, with sketchy allusions to events not fully documented. I was left wondering why the rush to publish. The book could certainly have done with a more decisive editorial hand. Large sections read as a meandering stream of consciousness, making is easy to lose track of the argument.
While disputing populists’ simplification of an always-contested past, Porter himself frequently falls into the same trap. Rather than critiquing the very idea of a balance sheet approach to history, for instance, he tells us that “all histories are a mix of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and of disputed choices of what should be placed in either of these categories, or indeed in the ‘neutral’—neither good nor bad—one” (vi). Although he goes on to state that he is more interested in explanation than judgment, an opportunity is missed to explain to the “lay” readership he envisages how conscientious historians deal with evidence and analysis. It might also have helped had Porter cited more of the work of his academic colleagues, enabling readers to see how interpretations are contested. Some of the more significant recent historiographical developments, perhaps most notably, work on the entanglements between Britain's Industrial Revolution and the trans-Atlantic slave economy, could certainly have been aired.
Porter proceeds with a mix of chronological and thematic chapters—a structure that unfortunately contributes to the narrative meanderings. Readers are guided between general surveys of the periods 1800–1945 and 1946–2016 with surrounding discussions of empire, politics, culture, Europeans, Brexit, history as a whole. The fresher insights stem in part from Porter's previous and perhaps lesser-known monographs, for example on the role of espionage and policing in the creation of modern governance. His treatment of the role of empire, as the omission of the slave-economy work indicates, remains narrowly focused on discussions among Britons within the UK, with little attention to material and discursive connections with the colonies. The deliberation wanders the past and the political present as we move through Victorian imperialism, post-World War II social democracy, Thatcherism, and right wing populism.
Porter is almost audibly exasperated at how low Britain has been brought by its right wing populist political leaders since the 2019 “Get Brexit Done” election. Jacob Rees Mogg and Boris Johnson are, quite rightly in my view, objects of particular scorn. Porter is unashamed to declare himself an educated elitist who believes that the “Machiavellian” operators behind Brexit led “the stupid astray” (138). The most explicit theorization of the nation's current plight comes very late on and it is a straightforwardly Marxist take. What we are going through, explains Porter, is a crisis of late-stage capitalism, in which ignorant voters have been persuaded that scapegoating, proto-fascism, and the election of “clownish personalities as leaders” are the solutions to their woes, rather than the social democratic reforms that he prefers (139). The disaster of Brexit permeates nearly every page.
This book is Porter's late-career lament, but also his rallying cry to British “patriots.” Please, he is calling, at times admonishing, stop being susceptible to the siren calls of the lying, self-interested populists and think about both our past and our future in more nuanced ways. Recognize the complexity of the past and the need for trade-offs in governance today. Become more historically literate and you will be able to sniff out the snake oil remedies of a culture war proffered by the Trumps and Johnsons of this world. Porter makes clear his own patriotism, but it is the patriotism of the Chartists and the anti-imperialists rather than of the jingoists (although he does condemn the Black Lives Matter protestors who dumped Edward Colston's statue in Bristol harbor as representatives of an equally intolerant culture war of the Left).
I have sympathy with Porter's cause, but I wish that the book arising from it had been executed with a longer gestation period for reflection. Certain moments of self-indulgence could have been ironed out, other historians could have been given more of an airing and, above all the wandering and repetitive narrative could have been considerably tightened. The long sections where Porter's muses on contemporary political developments at the time of writing (2021) were always going to be outdated by the time of publication, and might have been better published elsewhere, in more immediate formats. The historical account contains plenty of interesting material, much of it drawn from Porter's previous publications, but it could have been presented far more efficiently and impactfully. As it stands, I doubt that it will achieve its purpose among Porter's imagined readership.
