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    Andrew Roberts on The Habits of Churchill, Lessons from Napoleon, and The Holy Fire Inside Great Leaders (#773)

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    “As soon as you think you understand a period, all it takes is one new set of papers or a new book written by somebody else that can make you look again at the same period and completely change your mind about it. And that’s a little unnerving at the age of 61, I have to say.”
    — Andrew Roberts

    Andrew Roberts (@aroberts_andrew) has written twenty books, which have been translated into twenty-eight languages and have won thirteen literary prizes. 

    These include Salisbury: Victorian Titan, Masters and Commanders, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, Napoleon: A Life, Churchill: Walking with Destiny, The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III, and most recently, Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Gaza, which he co-authored with General David Petraeus.

    Lord Roberts is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical Society, the Bonnie and Tom McCloskey Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and a visiting professor at the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London. He is also a member of the House of Lords.

    Please enjoy!

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    Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform.

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    #773: Andrew Roberts on The Habits of Churchill, Lessons from Napoleon, and The Holy Fire Inside Great Leaders

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    Want to hear another episode with a historian who looks to the past in order to understand where the future’s headed? Have a listen to my conversation with Niall Ferguson, in which we discuss the revoking of academia’s license to be outrageous, historical contingency, keeping Cold War II from heating up into World War III, the joys of digging deep into historical correspondence, why an atheist takes his kids to church, life under fatwa, an evolving toolkit for enacting change, and much more.

    What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

    SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

    • Connect with Andrew Roberts:

    Website | Twitter

    SHOW NOTES

    • [00:06:14] Expelled from Cranleigh school.
    • [00:07:14] Why MI6 considered Andrew for recruitment.
    • [00:09:56] The teacher who made history exciting to 10-year-old Andrew.
    • [00:13:05] Words Andrew avoids when writing about history.
    • [00:14:20] Are steady-nerved leaders naturally born or nurtured?
    • [00:16:05] The thinkers who influenced Winston Churchill and his sense of noblesse oblige.
    • [00:18:26] What made Napoleon Bonaparte the prime exemplar of war leadership?
    • [00:24:37] Lessons from Winston Churchill’s autobiography, My Early Life.
    • [00:26:22] Napoleon’s relationship with risk.
    • [00:29:26] Andrew’s signed letter from Aldous Huxley.
    • [00:30:49] When historical figures carry a sense of personal destiny.
    • [00:33:07] The meeting Andrew wishes he could’ve witnessed as a fly on the wall.
    • [00:34:30] When historical villains carry a sense of personal destiny.
    • [00:37:14] What Churchill and Napoleon learned from their mistakes.
    • [00:39:38] “Dear Diary…”
    • [00:44:00] Maintaining creative flow during the writing process.
    • [00:47:18] On working with brilliant publisher Stuart Proffitt (aka Professor Perfect).
    • [00:52:53] Why are some significant figures immortalized while others go the way of Ozymandias?
    • [00:57:59] Thoughts on personal legacy.
    • [00:59:18] Fiction favorites.
    • [01:02:05] Being objective about the history of imperialism.
    • [01:03:31] The challenges of teaching and learning history today.
    • [01:06:40] Why “Study history” is Andrew’s coat of arms motto.
    • [01:10:22] What Andrew, as a history expert, sees for the future.
    • [01:14:01] Counteracting natural pessimism.
    • [01:15:34] What to expect from Andrew’s latest book Conflict (co-authored with David Petraeus).
    • [01:19:21] Upcoming book projects.
    • [01:20:26] Parting thoughts.

    MORE ANDREW ROBERTS QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

    “I don’t think I’m the first person ever as a young man to get drunk and climb up buildings … It led to one of my wife’s most brilliant witticisms. She said, ‘And all Andrew’s done since in life is to get drunk and social climb.’”
    — Andrew Roberts

    “When I feel pessimism for America, it’s for things like taking the Thomas Jefferson statue down from the New York City Hall. It’s a form of cultural suicide. It strikes me not to admire the founders of your nation. And yes, of course he owned slaves, but he also wrote a constitution that has survived for a quarter of a millennium and he was brave enough, and Washington and all the others, brave enough to stand up against the most powerful empire in the world. These things, you deserve your statue, it seems to me. And if you go around pulling these things down, I think you’re breaking a living link with the past that makes you a great country.”
    — Andrew Roberts

    “I find it very relaxing and calming to think that my life isn’t just going to be a complete waste of time. And one of the only ways that I can justify this concept that it’s all not just a nihilistic maelstrom is by writing books, obviously, which I hope will survive me. But also, noting down what I’ve done in the day.”
    — Andrew Roberts

    “As soon as you think you understand a period, all it takes is one new set of papers or a new book written by somebody else that can make you look again at the same period and completely change your mind about it. And that’s a little unnerving at the age of 61, I have to say.”
    — Andrew Roberts

    “I’m a bit of a pessimist anyway because I’m a Tory and pessimism is an essential part of Toryism.”
    — Andrew Roberts

    PEOPLE MENTIONED

    Benjamin Disraeli, the Earl of Beaconsfield
    Susan Gilchrist
    James Bond
    Cookie Monster
    Christopher Perry
    Charles I
    Oliver Cromwell
    Elizabeth I
    Mary, Queen of Scots
    Robert Caro
    Niall Ferguson
    Napoleon Bonaparte
    Winston Churchill
    Julius Caesar
    Alexander the Great
    Edward Gibbon
    Thomas Babington Macaulay
    Arthur Schopenhauer
    Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert
    Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
    Sir Francis Drake
    Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson
    John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
    Randolph Churchill
    Jeanette Spencer-Churchill
    Aldous Huxley
    Adolf Hitler
    Neville Chamberlain
    George VI
    Claus von Stauffenberg
    David Koresh
    Jim Jones
    Xi Jinping
    Benjamin Netanyahu
    Joe Biden
    Louis XVI
    Samuel Johnson
    Stuart Proffitt
    Herodotus
    Abraham Lincoln
    Percy Bysshe Shelley
    Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
    Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
    Robert Goddard
    William Boyd
    Salman Rushdie
    Robert Harris
    Michel Houellebecq
    Henry VIII
    Denzel Washington
    Sherlock Holmes
    Eleanor Rigby
    Ronald Hutton
    Simon Roberts
    Edward I
    Elizabeth II
    Warren Hastings
    Nelson Mandela
    Volodymyr Zelenskyy
    Thomas More
    Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford
    William Wallace
    George III
    Thomas Jefferson
    P.G. Wodehouse
    David H. Petraeus
    Matthew Ridgway

    The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for “Best of Apple Podcasts” three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it’s been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.





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