Product Description

May 2nd 2045.Lestoq,an overweight,asthmatic,Fellow of All Souls College,Oxford,working for the Times,wakes up with a hangover and the sexiest secret policewoman in Europol.In the course of the next week he discovers that Aachen Referendum which ratified the Aachen Treaty of Complete Union and thus createdthe European superstate thirty years before,was rigged by a conspiracy within the European Commission.The Union is now xenophobic,corrupt and tyrannical.The royal family left Britain in 2016,and King William V of New Zealand is returning to London to make a speech commemorating the 100th anniversary of VE day.Lestoq has to get evidence of the referendum rigging-the Aachen Memorandum-to the king for him to tell the world in a huge rally at Hyde Park.No easy task,as a dark family secret,a murdered father and meetings with the English Resistance Movement are only a few of the obstacles which stand in his way...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #251833 in Books
• Published on: 1996-09-02
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Synopsis
May 2nd 2045.Lestoq,an overweight,asthmatic,Fellow of All Souls College,Oxford,working for the Times,wakes up with a hangover and the sexiest secret policewoman in Europol.In the course of the next week he discovers that Aachen Referendum which ratified the Aachen Treaty of Complete Union and thus createdthe European superstate thirty years before,was rigged by a conspiracy within the European Commission.The Union is now xenophobic,corrupt and tyrannical.The royal family left Britain in 2016,and King William V of New Zealand is returning to London to make a speech commemorating the 100th anniversary of VE day.Lestoq has to get evidence of the referendum rigging-the Aachen Memorandum-to the king for him to tell the world in a huge rally at Hyde Park.No easy task,as a dark family secret,a murdered father and meetings with the English Resistance Movement are only a few of the obstacles which stand in his way...

About the Author
Andrew Roberts took a first in Modern History at Cambridge. He has been a professional historian since the publication of his life of Lord Halifax , The Holy Fox, in 1991, followed by Eminent Churchillians in 1994 . He contributes regularly to the Sunday Telegraph. Lives in Knightsbridge, London, and has two children. His Salisbury won the Wolfson History Prize in 2000. His books include Napoleon and Wellington in 2001, Hitler and Churchill (based on BBC-2 series) in 2003. What Might Have Been (editor) in 2004. His History of the English Speaking Peoples Since 1900 was published in 2006 and won the Walter Bagehot Prize .

Customer Reviews

Pacy but poor
A Europe run by Germany and with all English culture expunged? I am sorry this does not add up. France would never allow Germany to become a dominant part of the Union and indeed ultimately France will refuse to allow total union as they would not allow the death of their specialness. So, the premiss of this book of a not-to-distant dystopian future did not work for me.

Nor did the various interventions which were all a bit weird. One of the blurbs on the book compared it to le Carre - sorry not even close.

I did read to the end, though, and did find myself turning the pages, so it gets a second star.

Overtaken by events
It's hard to believe that this over-the-top thriller, set in 2045, was written by a serious historian. Andrew Roberts regards the European Union as a matter of the Germans treating politics as war by other means, to invert Clausewitz. He has a point, but only just. My Bavarian great-grandaddy emigrated because he didn't want to be ruled by Prussian bureaucrats, so I sympathise. One gathers that Roberts' main objective is to irritate as many Euro-enthusiasts as possible--which is worth one star, at least.

Alas, his story hinges on the proposition that a Euro-referendum held in 2015 was stolen by fraud. We now know that the European Commission would never bother to do such a thing--it's much easier just to ignore inconventient defeats, and carry on regardless. The EU may not be much liked, but it doesn't stir passions quite as much as Roberts (or I) would like. Unfortunately, we don't much care about the corrupt and undemocratic practices of our unelected masters, not as long as we are all prosperous.

As a thriller, it works, more or less. The plot is so twisted that I just about lost it, but the narrative is lively enough to keep the pages turning. Nonetheless, I'd advise Roberts to stick to History.

Fast-paced and funny, but not very good.
What would a European Superstate look and feel like? Certainly nothing like the United States of Europe portrayed in 'The Aachen Memorandum'. Although the story is very fast-paced and at times really funny, it's just not very good. What should have been the book's main attraction is its greatest defect: the portrayal of a United States of Europe in 2045. Far from being somewhat realistic so as to be believable, this USE is nothing more than a sum of all the fears and paranoia of a certain segment of the British public. Trafalar Square being renamed Delors Square? Come on! As if 'Europe' has nothing better to do than rub out British national identity. I'm not British but a 'continental', yet not a great fan of the current EU either. But the central thesis of this book - Europe is an absurd project, let's get out - made me wonder who's going to write the book about what the year 2045 would look like without the European Union?