Taking up the mantle of Winston Churchill, Roberts delivers the ambitious sequel to one of the greatest, most influential books of the 20th century. In 1900, where Churchill ended the fourth volume of his History of the English Speaking Peoples, the United States had not yet emerged onto the world scene as a great power. Meanwhile, the British Empire was in decline but did not yet know it. Any number of other powers might have won primacy in the twentieth century and beyond, including Germany, Russia, possibly even France. Yet the coming century was to belong to the English-speaking peoples, who successively and successfully fought the Kaiserʼs Germany, Axis aggression and Soviet Communism, and who are now struggling against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. Also includes information on Al-Queda, Osama bin-Laden, Adolf Hitler, Iraq War (2003), Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Josef Stalin, Margaret Thatcher, Harry S. Truman, war against terror, Woodrow Wilson, Andrew Roberts brilliantly reveals what made the English-speaking people the preeminent political culture since 1900, and how they have defended their primacy from the many assaults upon them. What connects those countries where the majority of the population speaks English as a first language-the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies and Ireland-is far greater than what separates them, and the development of their history since 1900 has been a phenomenal success story. Book jacket.

Includes maps of: [British Landings along the Gallipoli Coastline, 1915]; [Order of Battle, D-Day Invasion, June 6, 1944]. Continues Winston Churchill's A history of the English-speaking peoples. "First published in Great Britain in 2006 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson"--T.p. verso.

A portrait of the English-speaking peoples at the dawn of the twentieth century -- Shouldering 'The white manʼs burden': 1900-4 -- American arrives: 1905-14 -- The first assault: Prussian militarism 1914-17 -- Peace guilt: 1918-19 -- American energy: 1920-9 -- Capitalism at bay: 1929-31 -- The second assault: fascist aggression 1931-9 -- Divided and faltering: 1939-41 -- United and conquering: 1942-4 -- Normandy to Nagasaki: 1944-5 -- The third assault: Soviet communism 1945-9 -- Cold War perils: the 1950s -- Civis Americanus sum: the 1960s -- The long, dismal, drawling tides: the 1970s -- Attritional victory: the 1980s -- The wasted breathing space: 1990-11 September 2001 -- The fourth assault: Islamicist terrorism and its de facto allies: 11 September 2001-15 December 2005 -- Conclusion.