Described by Will Hutton as "the most persuasive - and eminently readable -case for republicanism I have ever read".

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #950265 in Books
• Published on: 1998-07-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In Bring Home the Revolution award-winning journalist and broadcaster Jonathan Freedland casts his vote for transforming the UK into a republic. The crux of this entertaining and highly readable argument is that it's time Britain was more like America--in its political culture anyway. The pioneers who founded the American ideal not only exported a British revolution, he says, they exported Britain's rightful destiny: a democratic, radical, egalitarian political style. As Washington correspondent dor the Guardian until 1997, the author witnessed a diverse cross-section of US society; armed with more facts, figures and statistics than a government white paper, he covers many notable aspects of American life--from the ladies of Lesbianville to the Montana militiamen; from the spectacle of OJ Simpson's trial to the infamous McDonald's "hot coffee" lawsuit; from their written constitution, their self-made millionaires, their classlessness and their unshakeable belief that the "land of the free" is also the greatest country on earth. Freedland concludes with a 10-point plan to revolutionise Britain, including popular sovereignty (power must flow from the bottom up); the need for a written constitution, local power and a classless society, and ends with a call to create a new British identity. --Carey Green

Synopsis
Surveying the political cultures of the UK and the US, this book questions why America has such a strong influence over the United Kingdom. It seeks to select the American influences that will genuinely enhance life in the UK, rather than diminish it.

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Customer Reviews

Start from Scratch
As a college student in these United States, I was constantly bombarded by the propaganda of professors who pined for the political system of Britain. They relish the flexibility of Parliament, the power of the Premier, and the hidden mysteries of the Monarchy. If they are lucky, they will never see that system in the United States.

I wrote a review for the book Failure in British Government: The Politics of the Poll Tax which described how Britain's government enacted the most ill-conceived laws on taxation in British history. The authors made it clear that the famed checks and balances of the English Constitution described by Walter Bagehot were as dead as old Walter Bagehot himself. Britain is not now a democracy -- it is rather an elected dictatorship. A British Prime Minister today has more power than the English Monarch ever did. The colonists in the American Revolution were fighting to secure their rights as Englishmen, and today those Englishmen have fewer rights than they did in the Eighteenth Century. In the wake of the bombing of Omagh, they will have fewer still. What went wrong?

Jonathan Freedland believes the American Revolution stopped too soon: it should have continued into Britain itself. The Founding Fathers were proud Britons until the government of London drove them to despair. After independence, they embraced popular sovereignty and made sure that every position of power was filled via election or elected officials. They established real checks and balances and real separation of powers so that a government divided against itself will not invade the rights of its citizens. They wrote down the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to prevent the government from enforcing acts like the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974: the Act would have never made through the court challenges if it were passed in this country. Most importantly, they set up a screening mechanism to filter out ill-conceived acts like the Dangerous Dogs Act and incompetent judges.

Two facets of American life bear Freedland out: the failure of Health Care reform and the presence of the death penalty. The debacle of 1993 and 1994 had one good effect: it demonstrated that the legislature does indeed scrutinize the bills that come before it -- even when one party controls both houses of Congress and the White House to boot! The sanctimony of its opponents was sickening to behold, especially considering what stakes were; but a flawed plan was "deader than Elvis" according to Phil Gramm. Compare this to the Poll Tax of 1990, and the utility of weeding out bad ideas becomes self-evident.

The Death Penalty is popular in both Britain and the US; but in the US it is the law, and in Britain it is not. Why? Freedland blames "fair-weather democrats" who support the idea of democracy when it furthers their aims and oppose it when it doesn't. Abolishing the death penalty was justified under the pretense that the ruling class knows best. True democrats accept all the products of the democratic process -- even the parts they disagree with.

What are Freedland's chances of success? Pretty slim, really. Uprooting the entire British system of government and replacing it with American style of government would be the political task of the century: the costs and dislocations would be hard to estimate. America is not just a government but it is also a society -- we cannot predict what the effects would be to have US institutions imposed on British society. Freedland has accomplished one thing, though: supporters of the status quo have a lot of explaining to do.

A great book, but a sad reflection
I agree with almost every word the author writes. So perhaps my impressionof the quality of the writing is biased? It's easy to like a book youagree with. As a Brit, the book made me sad though. The fact is that theideas of the American Revolution *were* the ideas of English philosophy atthe time. All the revolutionaries thought of themselves as English untilforced to think otherwise. English libertarianism (I would say liberalism,as most English people would, but it has other connotations in theStates!) found its highest expression in the Declaration of Independenceand the US Constitution. That's why many of us have such affection for theUnited States - it is by no means perfect, but in many political ways it'sour home the way it should have been.
Unfortunately, our own people were too lazy, complacent or just plainreactionary to embrace libertarian ideas. And the sadder fact is that theystill are. With much popular support, the present government has created661 new crimes and has damaged basic rights - jury trial, double jeopardy,even habeas corpus. Yet the British public's appetite for repression isunsatisfied, as witness 80% support for compulsory ID cards.
Pretty soon, all that will be left of English freedoms will be thepolitical DNA living on in the US.

Excellent Book - What Now?
I found this a powerful book which makes the case for a major upheaval our our system. If it is a call to action, what is the next step? We seem to be getting small changes to our system, but they are cosmetic compared with the need for people to take responsibilty for their own lives rather than always expecting someone else to do this.

In my visits to the US I was very struck by the different attitudes that American's have in this area compared with us English. Economically this shows itself in the way that so many aspire to their own businesses whereas we seem to have a mentality of "get a job and let someone else be in charge of your destiny". Changing this round would have an enormous effect on our potential for economic growth and would equip us so much better for the coming century.

What can I do to help carry this forward? If there are discussions going on on this please email me at ianmhome@cocoon.co.uk so I can join in.