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The Man Who Saved Britain
After victory in World War II, Britain was a relieved but also a profoundly traumatized country. Simon Winder, born into this nation of uncertain identity, fell in love (as many before and since) with the man created as the antidote, a quintessentially British figure of great cultural James Bond. Written with passion, wit and a great deal of personal insight and affection, this book is his wildly amusing attempt to get to grips with Bond's legacy and the difficult decades in which it really mattered. 'A more entertaining tour of 007, and the period associations that get sucked into Winder's great comic intelligence, is hard to imagine' London Review of Books 'Diversions for the general reader and delights for the Bond enthusiast' Sunday Times 'A delightfully quirky, immediately engaging book' Scotland on Sunday
304 pages, Paperback
First published June 2, 2006
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290 people want to read
About the author
Simon Winder
17 books150 followersSIMON WINDER has spent far too much time in Germany, denying himself a lot of sunshine and fresh fruit just to write this book. He is the author of the highly praised The Man Who Saved Britain (FSG, 2006) and works in publishing in London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews
February 8, 2019
If I wanted to read the ramblings of a cynical prick, bitching and moaning about the things he loved so much in his childhood but now hates, I would've just read my journal.
There's solid information in this book pertaining to British global decline and the timely use of Bond as a veil. But the author's unorganized ranting made this an unbearable read.
There's solid information in this book pertaining to British global decline and the timely use of Bond as a veil. But the author's unorganized ranting made this an unbearable read.
June 18, 2020
Undoubtedly, a book which could have extraordinary attraction to Brits who lived through these years at home.
The passages sprinkled into the text, referencing Ian Fleming, his novels, and the inimitable James Bond, are interesting and have some appeal to followers of the secret agent.
Winder admits (pg 79) that his "aim is to use Bond merely as a thread to tie three decades together and not to get lost in pointless plot summaries or mere fan's notes."
He follows this mantra with his one-line reviews of Fleming's Bond novels - in sequential order, marking some as quite poor, with only Casino Royale and From Russia With Love as having any real literary value.
It would have been useful for Winder to expand on his reasons a little more for this - or perhaps he provides a greater insight in another publication.
For me, the book was palatable enough, but I found some sections slow moving and a trudge to get through.
I suspect that Winder satisfied his own needs, at least, with this work.
The passages sprinkled into the text, referencing Ian Fleming, his novels, and the inimitable James Bond, are interesting and have some appeal to followers of the secret agent.
Winder admits (pg 79) that his "aim is to use Bond merely as a thread to tie three decades together and not to get lost in pointless plot summaries or mere fan's notes."
He follows this mantra with his one-line reviews of Fleming's Bond novels - in sequential order, marking some as quite poor, with only Casino Royale and From Russia With Love as having any real literary value.
It would have been useful for Winder to expand on his reasons a little more for this - or perhaps he provides a greater insight in another publication.
For me, the book was palatable enough, but I found some sections slow moving and a trudge to get through.
I suspect that Winder satisfied his own needs, at least, with this work.
October 30, 2022
There's some great info and personal speculation here, but be warned that the Bond discussion doesn't really come in until page 73, after a bit long-winded of a contextual history, and the author even pops up to speak directly to the reader: "if you're still here...". In this way the the subtitle is misleading . . . I never really felt the author made the connection between what was disturbing beyond what is out of fashion and dated...a more apt subtitle might have been, "A personal journey through the cultural context that birthed Bond."
Be prepared for some rude comments about actors or music or even Bond elements you love . . . the discussion was lively and interesting enough for me to read until the end, but ultimately I'm left wondering of the value of its entirety--a streamlined and distilled essay would have been, I think, stronger overall. I did find the cultural stew and post-WWII Britain ponderings out of which Bond was formed to be compelling to consider, and even the questions of Bond's longevity in light of the myriad production problems, racism, sexism and datedness of attitudes, fashion and so forth to be worthwhile to consider. For me, the lasting love for Bond is in the music, but it would be interesting to read a postscript from the author since his survey extends only to the end of the Brosnan films, and his admiration halts at Connery.
Be prepared for some rude comments about actors or music or even Bond elements you love . . . the discussion was lively and interesting enough for me to read until the end, but ultimately I'm left wondering of the value of its entirety--a streamlined and distilled essay would have been, I think, stronger overall. I did find the cultural stew and post-WWII Britain ponderings out of which Bond was formed to be compelling to consider, and even the questions of Bond's longevity in light of the myriad production problems, racism, sexism and datedness of attitudes, fashion and so forth to be worthwhile to consider. For me, the lasting love for Bond is in the music, but it would be interesting to read a postscript from the author since his survey extends only to the end of the Brosnan films, and his admiration halts at Connery.
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October 24, 2021DNF. Too outdated, but I also wonder if I would’ve liked it when it wasn’t outdated yet..
November 9, 2010
I really must confess to never having read a single one of Ian Flemming's James Bond novels. But as a kid growing up in the 60's and 70's it was impossible to miss their impact on popular culture. My interest in Eurospy phenomena has always been the off-shoots: James Eastwood, The Man from Uncle, Where the Spys Are. But writer Simon Winder has made it all unnecessary for me to do so since he's published this amusing little book.
Subtitled A Personal Journey into the Disturbing World of James Bond, the book is a document about Winder's love/hate affair with Bond James Bond. He re-accounts how he saw Live and Let Die at a local theater while munching on a rum flavored chocolate bar. As a young adult he would travel the world as a book seller trying to cop a very Bondian attitude to the various countries he visited (much to the amusement of the wait staff). Although he views Bond as a hopeless bit of nostalgia for the late British Empire, he admits Sean Connery does look might real behind the wheel of a fast automobile.
I could go on for pages about this book: it's a non-stop delight to read. Winder is able to put Ian Flemming, Bond's creator, into perspective and muse on all the second banana actors who battled 007. He writes about being in a nation that was in decline in the 1970's and the difficulties of raising kids in a modern age. But I'll let the reader experience his witty comments for themselves.
This is one of the best "fan" publications I have ever read. Devoid of postmodern babble and full of love/disgust for it's subject.
Subtitled A Personal Journey into the Disturbing World of James Bond, the book is a document about Winder's love/hate affair with Bond James Bond. He re-accounts how he saw Live and Let Die at a local theater while munching on a rum flavored chocolate bar. As a young adult he would travel the world as a book seller trying to cop a very Bondian attitude to the various countries he visited (much to the amusement of the wait staff). Although he views Bond as a hopeless bit of nostalgia for the late British Empire, he admits Sean Connery does look might real behind the wheel of a fast automobile.
I could go on for pages about this book: it's a non-stop delight to read. Winder is able to put Ian Flemming, Bond's creator, into perspective and muse on all the second banana actors who battled 007. He writes about being in a nation that was in decline in the 1970's and the difficulties of raising kids in a modern age. But I'll let the reader experience his witty comments for themselves.
This is one of the best "fan" publications I have ever read. Devoid of postmodern babble and full of love/disgust for it's subject.
September 27, 2019
Really more a cultural history of Britain at the end of it's empire than a book about James Bond, Winder chronicles the interplay between Bond as pop phenomenon and shifting conceptions of British national identity. Very informative and well researched, although the author constantly injects his political hot takes into the mix which are reflexively left-leaning and seeping with shame over the Empire's often brutal legacy. The reader ends up expending a lot of mental energy parsing what is fact versus the author's opinion. It can be a pleasure, such as when he gives detailed run downs of British history (as an American, I was unfamiliar with much of the details) but also a chore, when one realizes that for someone with such an obsessive knowledge of all things Fleming and Bond, Winder doesn't seem to actually *like* the superspy that much. He's like the quintessential whinging liberal who can't just enjoy a campy movie because he's always guilt tripping himself over the darker social implications of the subtext. Still, I learned a lot from this book and I think that most will the insights within to be at least thought provoking regardless of whether or not you find yourself aligned with the author's politics.
November 24, 2012
Read this book some years ago, not long after I finally read King Solomon’s Mines. It was a snug fit. H. Rider Haggard was all about justifying the empire and it’s hierarchies; Bond, Winder suggests, was a way for England to reframe its role in a world where the sun did regularly set on the British Empire. We may not be big anymore, Bond suggests, but we’re still the best there is at what we do. .
Thought of it with pleasure when I saw James Bond collect the Queen for the Opening Ceremonies of the London Olympics; when I read Grant Morrison’s Supergods (also, in many ways, about a Child of the Empire adapting to the New World Order by using pop culture); and, of course, when I saw the awesome Something of Boris video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6CoNU.... And of course, thought of it today when I heard it evoked on my beloved NPR.
It’s a tiny bit uneven, IIRC. Had the feel of a text that could have used one more hard edit, but that the author decided the additional costs just wasn’t worth it. Been there brother.
Speaking of Bond, I’ve worked for a government for 13 years, and no one has taught me how to repurpose light fixtures as explosives.
Thought of it with pleasure when I saw James Bond collect the Queen for the Opening Ceremonies of the London Olympics; when I read Grant Morrison’s Supergods (also, in many ways, about a Child of the Empire adapting to the New World Order by using pop culture); and, of course, when I saw the awesome Something of Boris video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6CoNU.... And of course, thought of it today when I heard it evoked on my beloved NPR.
It’s a tiny bit uneven, IIRC. Had the feel of a text that could have used one more hard edit, but that the author decided the additional costs just wasn’t worth it. Been there brother.
Speaking of Bond, I’ve worked for a government for 13 years, and no one has taught me how to repurpose light fixtures as explosives.
February 9, 2009
The historical information is very interesting but the book becomes a bit of a tough read because it is half historical fact and half autobiography. The author's style is also a bit frustrating. He bounces all over the place without transitions. Sometimes, he will make a historical reference and will go pages without any context to explain it. He also makes serious suppositions about Bond's influence on the British public without, I felt, a great deal of evidence. In the end, the book felt a little like an extended high school essay.
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March 12, 2009Engaging and funny - less a fan book and much more of a cultural history of Britain from 1945-1970. Bond, and characters like him, presented an independent, assured, worldly fantasy to British fans uncertain as to their role in a post-colonial, post-WW2 world.
February 12, 2023
I don’t know if this author likes or dislikes James Bond. The writing is just horrible. He repeats, repeats, repeats and repeats the same things in the 260 pages I read of this 282 page book. I stopped reading at page 260. HOW DO I GET THE HOURS I SPENT BACK READING THIS BOOK BACK? HOW?
September 5, 2011
This is quite a fun book and has some interesting information in it but Simon Winder can't decide what sort of book he is trying to write. He is a serious and knowledgeable student and fan of Ian Fleming and the Bond books, but he also wants to send them up and show that he does not take them too seriously. Unfortunately his comic interventions to my mind fall flat. And although his book is short it could do with some editing because there are many sentences which you feel he was undecided about what was the best way of expressing something and ended up putting them both in even if they largely say the same thing. He also reverses his earlier condemning of the films since by the end he is highlighting their best points and follows convention by declaring that Connery was the best Bond and the early films were great and then everything went over the top. He is also trying to make a serious point about how the Bond phenomenon coincided with the "retreat from Empire" and found its audience among those people who thoroughly regret this and view Britain as being in decline.
This is an interesting thesis and Winder makes much of the impact of the change in Britain's world role which maybe has been under appreciated in literature or social study. It was the Empire which made Bond such a global figure at ease anywhere in the world, and Winder maybe right to say that only a British spy could be "at home" in the world the way Bond was. That said a number of other countries lost Empire in the 20th century (Turkey, France, Portugal, Belgium, Holland to name five). Admittedly Britain's empire had the widest spread and deepest roots (Canada, Australia and New Zealand being populated largely by Britons), but who knows if these other countries have not produced similar characters who maybe are not so well known because they were not written in English. Tintin for one seems to have a comparable globetrotting appeal.
It does suggest that one of the ways Bond is now very old fashioned is that when sports figures, film stars, pop musicians have global presence, a lone British spy no longer has the unique appeal that they would have had in the fifties and sixties.
There is an interesting point to be made about the impact of "losing" the Empire which is often referred to as being the source of British dissatisfaction in the post-war period - of having "lost an Empire and not found a role." And the extent of this sense of loss is much debated. Was it a dramatic shrinking of the horizon for a major cross section of society or just a relatively small selection of civil servants and businessmen? Britain certainly seemed to take longer to adjust to the post-war world than other countries.
Simon Winder is the same generation as myself and one of the points of interest for me was that I remember the same stuff. Like him "Live and Let Die" was the first Bond film I saw. Like him I remember when the major reading of British schoolboys was war comics. I also remember the Sunday Express having two page broadsheet tales of wartime adventure every week, with artists illustrations. The depths of this obsession was really brought home to me in 1996 when England hosted the European championships and a number of tabloids indulged in juvenile German-baiting and war-dredging, with "Achtung" in headlines and pictures of the editors in Tommy-style WW2 tin helmets. Germany and the rest of Europe, and to be fair many English people including the English team, just looked bemused and embarrassed by all this and I can't help thinking that these particular tabloid antics did a lot to end the era of war reminiscence.
The book is interesting but disorganised. Many of the same points crop up again and again throughout. And he never dwells too long on a point. One minute he is talking about Suez and the next he is talking about sex. Oddly he talks very little about the music - aside from a small section on John Barry. The title songs get very little mention even though a large chunk of Bond's enduring appeal is the great songs and singers particularly of the early Bonds. These songs still sell on Bond soundtrack albums and the choice of "Bond song" is as interesting to many people as the choice of "Bond girl."
Winder is probably right to say that a lot of the appeal of Bond, and especially the books, is the "knowledge". Bond had the knowledge, of drinks, of meals, of clothes, of guns and of girls. This was irresistible to adolescent males but does not explain the broader appeal. The only members of the James Bond fan club (whose magazine was called "Bondage" if I remember correctly) I ever met were female.
I have more time for the Roger Moore films than Winder, but like him have no interest in the Dalton and Brosnan eras. The one thing I will say about Daniel Craig is that he has made Bond films more interesting. When watching the early films again I am always surprised by how ridiculous and implausible the films were and also how violent. They are still fun to watch but not as fun as they used to be.
I only spotted one error in the book which was when Winder cited the heroine of "The Spy Who Loved Me" - probably the oddest of all Bond books - as English when of course she was French Canadian.
The book's bibliography has some titles on the "end of Empire" and they definitely sound worth following up on for anyone interested in that argument, which Winder is right to say is a much cited but unexplored area of British social history.
This is an interesting thesis and Winder makes much of the impact of the change in Britain's world role which maybe has been under appreciated in literature or social study. It was the Empire which made Bond such a global figure at ease anywhere in the world, and Winder maybe right to say that only a British spy could be "at home" in the world the way Bond was. That said a number of other countries lost Empire in the 20th century (Turkey, France, Portugal, Belgium, Holland to name five). Admittedly Britain's empire had the widest spread and deepest roots (Canada, Australia and New Zealand being populated largely by Britons), but who knows if these other countries have not produced similar characters who maybe are not so well known because they were not written in English. Tintin for one seems to have a comparable globetrotting appeal.
It does suggest that one of the ways Bond is now very old fashioned is that when sports figures, film stars, pop musicians have global presence, a lone British spy no longer has the unique appeal that they would have had in the fifties and sixties.
There is an interesting point to be made about the impact of "losing" the Empire which is often referred to as being the source of British dissatisfaction in the post-war period - of having "lost an Empire and not found a role." And the extent of this sense of loss is much debated. Was it a dramatic shrinking of the horizon for a major cross section of society or just a relatively small selection of civil servants and businessmen? Britain certainly seemed to take longer to adjust to the post-war world than other countries.
Simon Winder is the same generation as myself and one of the points of interest for me was that I remember the same stuff. Like him "Live and Let Die" was the first Bond film I saw. Like him I remember when the major reading of British schoolboys was war comics. I also remember the Sunday Express having two page broadsheet tales of wartime adventure every week, with artists illustrations. The depths of this obsession was really brought home to me in 1996 when England hosted the European championships and a number of tabloids indulged in juvenile German-baiting and war-dredging, with "Achtung" in headlines and pictures of the editors in Tommy-style WW2 tin helmets. Germany and the rest of Europe, and to be fair many English people including the English team, just looked bemused and embarrassed by all this and I can't help thinking that these particular tabloid antics did a lot to end the era of war reminiscence.
The book is interesting but disorganised. Many of the same points crop up again and again throughout. And he never dwells too long on a point. One minute he is talking about Suez and the next he is talking about sex. Oddly he talks very little about the music - aside from a small section on John Barry. The title songs get very little mention even though a large chunk of Bond's enduring appeal is the great songs and singers particularly of the early Bonds. These songs still sell on Bond soundtrack albums and the choice of "Bond song" is as interesting to many people as the choice of "Bond girl."
Winder is probably right to say that a lot of the appeal of Bond, and especially the books, is the "knowledge". Bond had the knowledge, of drinks, of meals, of clothes, of guns and of girls. This was irresistible to adolescent males but does not explain the broader appeal. The only members of the James Bond fan club (whose magazine was called "Bondage" if I remember correctly) I ever met were female.
I have more time for the Roger Moore films than Winder, but like him have no interest in the Dalton and Brosnan eras. The one thing I will say about Daniel Craig is that he has made Bond films more interesting. When watching the early films again I am always surprised by how ridiculous and implausible the films were and also how violent. They are still fun to watch but not as fun as they used to be.
I only spotted one error in the book which was when Winder cited the heroine of "The Spy Who Loved Me" - probably the oddest of all Bond books - as English when of course she was French Canadian.
The book's bibliography has some titles on the "end of Empire" and they definitely sound worth following up on for anyone interested in that argument, which Winder is right to say is a much cited but unexplored area of British social history.
June 4, 2025
A very interesting premise of looking at the decline of Britain in the 1950s and 1960s juxtaposed with the popularity of James Bond at the same time, but poorly executed. I should have known what I was getting into when the author warned historians in his introduction. The book consists of rambling stream of consciousness topics about Ian Fleming, Bond, and the history of Britain during that time, but all though the author's personal opinions. Hopefully someone can take this idea and execute it properly.
July 29, 2025
So long as you accept that this is a rather dated book that was never meant to have a long shelf life, Winder's meanderings about the fall of the British Empire, Ian Fleming's reaction to said fall, and what it says about how the British public made "Bond" a phenomena are actually rather interesting.
Like most of the readers, I could have done with a bit less of Winder's personal history, but as a near contemporary it gave me some food for thought about what the British experience post-1945 was like, particularly since the Brits keep scoring "own goals" on themselves; though as an American in 2025 I'm not in a position to be too smug about it.
Like most of the readers, I could have done with a bit less of Winder's personal history, but as a near contemporary it gave me some food for thought about what the British experience post-1945 was like, particularly since the Brits keep scoring "own goals" on themselves; though as an American in 2025 I'm not in a position to be too smug about it.
January 31, 2022
En helt okej bok som handlade mindre om Bond än jag hade tänkt.
May 18, 2012
I'm not sure what I expected from this book, but whatever it might have been the book itself changed all that. For all of the fussy score-keepers out there it's probably worth at least a "3.5" given both the writing and my interest in the material.
I know very little about Mr. Winder other than what he himself includes in the text and the liner notes. On the other hand, I have read all of the Fleming Bond books (and even several thereafter) as well as seen all of the movies that he also cites. While I agree with much he has to say about the books and the films, I should point out that the man has strong opinions and potentially very unpopular ones. To summarize: there are no sacred cows in the Bond Universe that cannot be slaughtered.
Intertwined with the details about the books, the films, Fleming, and the character's imprint on the British everyman is a description of England as it transitioned during the 20th Century from dominant world power thru the end of Colonialism to a powerless specter on the world stage. He details the social, political, and economic forces at work in post-WWII Great Britain and the effect they had on both policy and people. As much as I like Bond, it was with the hope of seeing how the English people were "saved" by Bond that I read this.
Although I certainly am not an expert on English history or culture of this period, I have been immersed in enough pop culture from that time (along with the daily news) to have a frame of reference which I could compare against. Without any kind of fact-checking on my part, I must say that he paints a bleaker and starker picture than I had imagined or expected.
The book is very interesting because of the range of what he collects. I do think that several of the thoughts/points are re-used and repeated in different chapters, but only so much that you notice that they've been brought up before. It's as if he knows that to do more will just make the reader throw down the book and say, "humbug".
As I said above, he shoots virtually everything in sight. As a mature adult there is little that he treasures without qualification. I don't always agree with his opinions but I found them informative. (He throws in a few trivia details about the movies that I'm sure are easy to find, but that I never had the energy or passion to investigate.) If you are an unabashed Bond fan or Bond hater, then I don't know if this book will sit well with you. If you're completely neutral that probably won't work either. A little interest is required to get through it all. I'm glad I read it - hopefully you will be also.
I know very little about Mr. Winder other than what he himself includes in the text and the liner notes. On the other hand, I have read all of the Fleming Bond books (and even several thereafter) as well as seen all of the movies that he also cites. While I agree with much he has to say about the books and the films, I should point out that the man has strong opinions and potentially very unpopular ones. To summarize: there are no sacred cows in the Bond Universe that cannot be slaughtered.
Intertwined with the details about the books, the films, Fleming, and the character's imprint on the British everyman is a description of England as it transitioned during the 20th Century from dominant world power thru the end of Colonialism to a powerless specter on the world stage. He details the social, political, and economic forces at work in post-WWII Great Britain and the effect they had on both policy and people. As much as I like Bond, it was with the hope of seeing how the English people were "saved" by Bond that I read this.
Although I certainly am not an expert on English history or culture of this period, I have been immersed in enough pop culture from that time (along with the daily news) to have a frame of reference which I could compare against. Without any kind of fact-checking on my part, I must say that he paints a bleaker and starker picture than I had imagined or expected.
The book is very interesting because of the range of what he collects. I do think that several of the thoughts/points are re-used and repeated in different chapters, but only so much that you notice that they've been brought up before. It's as if he knows that to do more will just make the reader throw down the book and say, "humbug".
As I said above, he shoots virtually everything in sight. As a mature adult there is little that he treasures without qualification. I don't always agree with his opinions but I found them informative. (He throws in a few trivia details about the movies that I'm sure are easy to find, but that I never had the energy or passion to investigate.) If you are an unabashed Bond fan or Bond hater, then I don't know if this book will sit well with you. If you're completely neutral that probably won't work either. A little interest is required to get through it all. I'm glad I read it - hopefully you will be also.
August 9, 2014
A fanatical, mean-spirited little book, intermittently amusing, in which the author proposes on purely circumstantial evidence that the popularity of the James Bond books and films is due to the consolation they provided to (mostly conservative) Britons traumatised by the loss of the British Empire and their country’s economic collapse after the Second World War.
In support of this absurd thesis, Simon Winder rewrites some recent British and world history, dismisses the rest of it as a catalogue of unremitting savagery and exploitation, and wildly overuses the adjective ‘mad’ and its synonyms (a favourite is ‘zany’) when describing anyone or anything conservative or upper-class. He is also fond of using the word ‘cynical’ in those connexions. Yet nothing could be madder or more cynical than Mr. Winder’s own take on history and his loony-Left political judgements. I am no Tory, and neither am I British, but I can diagnose a case of envy when I see one.
This is history and social commentary written by a movie nerd who should, frankly, have stuck to film reviews. By the way, he doesn't think much of the Bond books or films either, except for From Russia with Love and the movie version of Goldfinger.
In support of this absurd thesis, Simon Winder rewrites some recent British and world history, dismisses the rest of it as a catalogue of unremitting savagery and exploitation, and wildly overuses the adjective ‘mad’ and its synonyms (a favourite is ‘zany’) when describing anyone or anything conservative or upper-class. He is also fond of using the word ‘cynical’ in those connexions. Yet nothing could be madder or more cynical than Mr. Winder’s own take on history and his loony-Left political judgements. I am no Tory, and neither am I British, but I can diagnose a case of envy when I see one.
This is history and social commentary written by a movie nerd who should, frankly, have stuck to film reviews. By the way, he doesn't think much of the Bond books or films either, except for From Russia with Love and the movie version of Goldfinger.
August 18, 2019
For starters, a three-star opinion from me does not mean the book was a failure, but rather it was neither better nor worse than I expected.
I read this because I have really enjoyed two of Winder's other books -- Germania and Lotharingia -- which I can strongly recommend to anybody with interest in the history of the region, and how that history affects life there today. The Bond book was in the same vein. The central conceit -- that Bond represented a pyschological escape valve for those millions of Britons who'd had their society overturned, in a bad way, in the three decades post WWII, is quite an interesting insight, but perhaps not enough to sustain a book of this length. He struggled to balance the fluff of a movie watched for two hours every other year with the much weightier issues of Great Britains economic and statemanship declines over that period.
For all that, it was typically erudite and fun to read, though I'd have doubtless enjoyed it more if I had read the books more recently (they don't linger long in the memory, after all) and seen some of the earlier movies.
I read this because I have really enjoyed two of Winder's other books -- Germania and Lotharingia -- which I can strongly recommend to anybody with interest in the history of the region, and how that history affects life there today. The Bond book was in the same vein. The central conceit -- that Bond represented a pyschological escape valve for those millions of Britons who'd had their society overturned, in a bad way, in the three decades post WWII, is quite an interesting insight, but perhaps not enough to sustain a book of this length. He struggled to balance the fluff of a movie watched for two hours every other year with the much weightier issues of Great Britains economic and statemanship declines over that period.
For all that, it was typically erudite and fun to read, though I'd have doubtless enjoyed it more if I had read the books more recently (they don't linger long in the memory, after all) and seen some of the earlier movies.
October 23, 2015
A peek at the car crash that was postwar Britain, and how an extraordinary character, born of a mind that was peculiar at best, came to represent its hopes and dreams.
As well as interesting insights, there was a great deal to make me laugh out loud, from the author's confessions of childhood Bond games to his hilariously cruel description of A View to a Kill-vintage Roger Moore as looking like an exploded yoghurt discovered at the back of the fridge.
I didn't always see eye to eye with Simon Winder on important issues like coronation chicken, Moonraker the novel, and the sex appeal of Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore (I am pro all these things), but I would love to sit in a pub with him and thrash them out. But not in the way Ian Fleming would thrash things.
As well as interesting insights, there was a great deal to make me laugh out loud, from the author's confessions of childhood Bond games to his hilariously cruel description of A View to a Kill-vintage Roger Moore as looking like an exploded yoghurt discovered at the back of the fridge.
I didn't always see eye to eye with Simon Winder on important issues like coronation chicken, Moonraker the novel, and the sex appeal of Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore (I am pro all these things), but I would love to sit in a pub with him and thrash them out. But not in the way Ian Fleming would thrash things.
August 10, 2015
Simon Winder has a love/hate relationship with Ian Fleming's Bond books as well as the films. His encyclopedic knowledge of what he loves to hate about them is impressive. His book was published just before the films with Daniel Craig as Bond hit the scene. I had never considered that the creation of Bond might be a response to a declining empire in need of a hero. Winder's humor was biting and engaging. I also learned more about English history during and after the world wars.
March 2, 2019
Not a fan of writers who try to mask opinion as fact. While I’m happy to hear opposite opinions, this reads as a hate letter about Britain and anyone who doesn’t agree with the Author’s politics. The only positive to this book is that I won’t have to find a space for it on my shelves.
November 6, 2021
Too much negativity throughout the book directed at everyone & everything, but the author lost me when he proceeded to fat shame (?!?!?) Connery, Moore & Brosnan during their respective runs as Bond. Seriously? 😐😶😒 The book had potential, but not in this writer's hand.
April 12, 2015
The Man Who Saved Britain
A Personal Journey into the Distrubing World of james Bond
Author: Simon Winder
Publisher: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux
Published In: New York
Date: 2006
Pgs: 285
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Summary:
A shattered great power ensconced in the post-World War II ruin. A proud world power brought low. In this world, Ian Fleming created an alternate world of secret British greatness and glamor. In Bond’s world, Britain was a player, The Player. Fleming via Bond has his say on much of the world in that era; sex, the monarchy, food, class, America, etc. This novel explores the Bondian influence on postwar Britain. Agent 007 reporting. Bond...James Bond.
Genre:
Autobiography and memoir
Behind the Scenes
Classics
Film
History
Literary criticism
Non-fiction
Society
War
Why this book:
It’s Bond...James Bond.
______________________________________________________________________________
Favorite Character:
James Bond, even though he isn’t exactly favorably disposed of here, despite being one of the author’s favorite characters.
Least Favorite Character:
Great Britain
The Feel:
The narrative feels almost angry about pulling the curtain back and looking in on the great and powerful Oz, though whether Oz is Bond, Fleming, or the Britain of the era or some combination of all three isn’t necessarily spelled out. Almost like, the author found more and considered more than he was initially prepared to do when he started the process.
Bond stands in contrast. He is from the Britain that they, both the author and the people of Britain who were his first fans, seem to wish existed rather than the one that actually existed during that time.
Favorite Scene:
The author’s mother sitting on the steps of her home in London during the Blitz eating a honey sandwich as planes fly overhead on their way to or from the Battle of Britain.
Where the author is describing the experience of snorkelling after reading the scuba scenes in Bond books…
If someone goes into a tropical sea in a Bond novel the narrative demands the immediate presence of some dangerous fish. Indeed, it would be a banal disgrace if there were not one - just as Bond cannot talk to a girl without having sex with her or enter a casino without winning big. Most unfortunately this has so raised the bar for anyone entering the water as to make the actual experience a bit woeful.
...same with walking into a casino. Standing at a baccarat table in a casino on an American Indian Reservation, while awesome, is not Monte Carlo or wherever Bond happens to be playing. We were spoiled by the fiction, I think.
Pacing:
This book is very well paced. The author bends words in a wonderful way. I have misgivings about the way the book points at and elaborates on its central premise, but it is extremely well written.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
The author’s characterization of British children of the 70s being more warpornish than kids in other countries is mistake. When he describes setting up toy soldiers and fighting mock battles, he could have been with my brother and I in Lake Dallas, Texas and our armies gathered along both sides of a small drainage in the backyard as we start throwing small rocks, sorry...bullets and mortars, across the ditch at the opposing armies. Warporn may be a generational thing or it may be hardwired into us as a species, but it is assuredly not just a British 50s, 60s, 70s childhood phenomena.
When the author describes the Bond books or Bond as a character, I can feel the rose colored glasses that I’ve always viewed both through falling from my eyes. They are very much a part of their time. Reading about the books when the author summarizes them and comments on them feels a lot like watching sausage be made. I know that Daniel Craig’s Bond in the movies is a more evolved and up-to-date version of the character with the old sensibilities being a flavoring rather than the whole dinner. This may be what saves Bond from the trashbin of history where characters like Matt Helm have fallen.
Hmm Moments:
Is it just me or is this a damned odd paragraph?
As a memoir, this book is fragmentary and scraped together from very slightly interesting bits and bobs. My life has just not been melodramatic enough to take up more than a few pages. I had a cheerful childhood packed with affection, no specific features to incite sympathy and no adventures to speak of. As history it will anger many, filled as it is with shocking generalizations and lack of documentation. I share that anger. This book was written in large part because I want to convey, perhaps in an overdrawn form, some of the ways in which Britain has changed-and by following James Bond show some of a vanished world which he in various ways pulled together.
I get the point of it. So I guess it’s all good. But, the paragraph strikes me as odd. Sort of a introduction denouement.
The author’s comparison of the perception of the last statesmen of the portraiture era vs the first statesmen of the radio and television era is spot on. We look at the last and see vibrant colors and artists bringing the heroic into focus vs the last appearing as staticy, flitty, sound and black and white images that make them seem small and comic opera. This perception is fed by the media of the images and sounds as much as the history that is known about the characters.
The exploration of Bond’s possible literary forebears is interesting; Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels, Hope’s Prisoner of Zenda, and Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines.
The idea of postwar Britain as a stuffed cobra and a front room full of bric-a-brac, tourist trap tchotchke crap from the vanishing empire is well presented
One of his commentaries on Conservatives in the postwar British period could have been his speaking on America in the modern day.
Britain was left with a zany system in which the MPs of the Conservative Party, who ruled cumulatively for thirty-five years from 1945, would not themselves have dreamed of using either the public health system or public transport (beyond first class carriages on trains) and would have been socially ostracized if they had sent their children to state schools. This left a long lasting, very peculiar split where the Conservatives, often blue blooded figures of astonishing dimness or over-articulate fatalism, continued to attract support from a broad base - partly aspirational but also, and more important, bitter and angry about the whirlwind ruining their world.
This is a vision of a Britain that I’ve never really been cognizant of, or more properly, I knew of, but this is a depth and flavor to it that I was not aware existed.
Why isn’t there a screenplay?
A screenplay on a book about the history and culture of Britain told through the filter of James Bond...better to watch the Bond films and read the Fleming books. Though I warn you now, they are becoming more and more dated as the years slide passed.
Casting call:
Connery will always be my Bond. I really liked Craig and Brosnan. Moore and Dalton were okay. Was never a Lazenby or Niven guy.
I believe wholeheartedly that Idris Elba should be James Bond. He’d be freaking awesome. Dreamcasting there. And that James Bond should be the cover identity given to the top spy in Britain. 007 should be legion. Always only one, but always evolving with the times and becoming something new.
______________________________________________________________________________
Last Page Sound:
At the end, this piece of nonfiction is the author coming to terms with what his country is and where its at. Amazingly well written. I didn’t like it. but I’m glad I read it. I didn’t like it because it showed me a Britain that isn’t the fantasy that has lived in my head for forever. It is hard to have the lies we tell ourselves brought out into the light and exposed. I’ll never be able to re-read the Bond novels again after this. And that’s okay. This is going to color my experience with those novels and the movies. And that’s okay. Sometimes, the braces have to fall away.
Author Assessment:
Mr Winder sounds in the introduction like he doesn’t like Britain, like he’s disgusted with the Britain that existed in the mid-World War interregnum. And he doesn’t sound like he likes Ian Fleming very much. Though in truthfulness, the way Fleming is described here, I doubt that I would have liked him either.
Winder’s style is interesting and feels personal.
Though the story purports to be about Bond, the world he created and that he was created by and that he is mentioned on every other page, this is tangentially at best about Bond and is more along the lines of a diatribe against what Britain was and what she became in the 1900s. The book is anti-royalist, anti-Conservative, anti-Labour, and is essentially anti-British. This isn’t a love story to the Britain that existed across this era.
I love the way this is written. But there is a bit of feeling like I am being made to look at myself naked in the mirror or to stare at my own feet. Confronting your foibles through the writing of someone else and having a hero be undressed in this fashion is jarring.
Case by case basis, I would absolutely give anything else written by this author a look.
Editorial Assessment:
Could have benefited from the editor drawing the narrative back onto the path a time or three, especially in the introductory chapter.
Knee Jerk Reaction:
glad I read it
Disposition of Book:
Irving Public Library
Irving, TX
Would recommend to:
history buffs, the hardcore James Bond nerd, post war Britain aficionados
______________________________________________________________________________
Errata:
Ian Fleming once had an ongoing affair with the mother of Chris Blackwell. Chris Blackwell and Island Records helped bring Jamaican music out to the world. A ton of artists in many genres found their way through Island Records over the years.
A Personal Journey into the Distrubing World of james Bond
Author: Simon Winder
Publisher: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux
Published In: New York
Date: 2006
Pgs: 285
REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Summary:
A shattered great power ensconced in the post-World War II ruin. A proud world power brought low. In this world, Ian Fleming created an alternate world of secret British greatness and glamor. In Bond’s world, Britain was a player, The Player. Fleming via Bond has his say on much of the world in that era; sex, the monarchy, food, class, America, etc. This novel explores the Bondian influence on postwar Britain. Agent 007 reporting. Bond...James Bond.
Genre:
Autobiography and memoir
Behind the Scenes
Classics
Film
History
Literary criticism
Non-fiction
Society
War
Why this book:
It’s Bond...James Bond.
______________________________________________________________________________
Favorite Character:
James Bond, even though he isn’t exactly favorably disposed of here, despite being one of the author’s favorite characters.
Least Favorite Character:
Great Britain
The Feel:
The narrative feels almost angry about pulling the curtain back and looking in on the great and powerful Oz, though whether Oz is Bond, Fleming, or the Britain of the era or some combination of all three isn’t necessarily spelled out. Almost like, the author found more and considered more than he was initially prepared to do when he started the process.
Bond stands in contrast. He is from the Britain that they, both the author and the people of Britain who were his first fans, seem to wish existed rather than the one that actually existed during that time.
Favorite Scene:
The author’s mother sitting on the steps of her home in London during the Blitz eating a honey sandwich as planes fly overhead on their way to or from the Battle of Britain.
Where the author is describing the experience of snorkelling after reading the scuba scenes in Bond books…
If someone goes into a tropical sea in a Bond novel the narrative demands the immediate presence of some dangerous fish. Indeed, it would be a banal disgrace if there were not one - just as Bond cannot talk to a girl without having sex with her or enter a casino without winning big. Most unfortunately this has so raised the bar for anyone entering the water as to make the actual experience a bit woeful.
...same with walking into a casino. Standing at a baccarat table in a casino on an American Indian Reservation, while awesome, is not Monte Carlo or wherever Bond happens to be playing. We were spoiled by the fiction, I think.
Pacing:
This book is very well paced. The author bends words in a wonderful way. I have misgivings about the way the book points at and elaborates on its central premise, but it is extremely well written.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
The author’s characterization of British children of the 70s being more warpornish than kids in other countries is mistake. When he describes setting up toy soldiers and fighting mock battles, he could have been with my brother and I in Lake Dallas, Texas and our armies gathered along both sides of a small drainage in the backyard as we start throwing small rocks, sorry...bullets and mortars, across the ditch at the opposing armies. Warporn may be a generational thing or it may be hardwired into us as a species, but it is assuredly not just a British 50s, 60s, 70s childhood phenomena.
When the author describes the Bond books or Bond as a character, I can feel the rose colored glasses that I’ve always viewed both through falling from my eyes. They are very much a part of their time. Reading about the books when the author summarizes them and comments on them feels a lot like watching sausage be made. I know that Daniel Craig’s Bond in the movies is a more evolved and up-to-date version of the character with the old sensibilities being a flavoring rather than the whole dinner. This may be what saves Bond from the trashbin of history where characters like Matt Helm have fallen.
Hmm Moments:
Is it just me or is this a damned odd paragraph?
As a memoir, this book is fragmentary and scraped together from very slightly interesting bits and bobs. My life has just not been melodramatic enough to take up more than a few pages. I had a cheerful childhood packed with affection, no specific features to incite sympathy and no adventures to speak of. As history it will anger many, filled as it is with shocking generalizations and lack of documentation. I share that anger. This book was written in large part because I want to convey, perhaps in an overdrawn form, some of the ways in which Britain has changed-and by following James Bond show some of a vanished world which he in various ways pulled together.
I get the point of it. So I guess it’s all good. But, the paragraph strikes me as odd. Sort of a introduction denouement.
The author’s comparison of the perception of the last statesmen of the portraiture era vs the first statesmen of the radio and television era is spot on. We look at the last and see vibrant colors and artists bringing the heroic into focus vs the last appearing as staticy, flitty, sound and black and white images that make them seem small and comic opera. This perception is fed by the media of the images and sounds as much as the history that is known about the characters.
The exploration of Bond’s possible literary forebears is interesting; Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels, Hope’s Prisoner of Zenda, and Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines.
The idea of postwar Britain as a stuffed cobra and a front room full of bric-a-brac, tourist trap tchotchke crap from the vanishing empire is well presented
One of his commentaries on Conservatives in the postwar British period could have been his speaking on America in the modern day.
Britain was left with a zany system in which the MPs of the Conservative Party, who ruled cumulatively for thirty-five years from 1945, would not themselves have dreamed of using either the public health system or public transport (beyond first class carriages on trains) and would have been socially ostracized if they had sent their children to state schools. This left a long lasting, very peculiar split where the Conservatives, often blue blooded figures of astonishing dimness or over-articulate fatalism, continued to attract support from a broad base - partly aspirational but also, and more important, bitter and angry about the whirlwind ruining their world.
This is a vision of a Britain that I’ve never really been cognizant of, or more properly, I knew of, but this is a depth and flavor to it that I was not aware existed.
Why isn’t there a screenplay?
A screenplay on a book about the history and culture of Britain told through the filter of James Bond...better to watch the Bond films and read the Fleming books. Though I warn you now, they are becoming more and more dated as the years slide passed.
Casting call:
Connery will always be my Bond. I really liked Craig and Brosnan. Moore and Dalton were okay. Was never a Lazenby or Niven guy.
I believe wholeheartedly that Idris Elba should be James Bond. He’d be freaking awesome. Dreamcasting there. And that James Bond should be the cover identity given to the top spy in Britain. 007 should be legion. Always only one, but always evolving with the times and becoming something new.
______________________________________________________________________________
Last Page Sound:
At the end, this piece of nonfiction is the author coming to terms with what his country is and where its at. Amazingly well written. I didn’t like it. but I’m glad I read it. I didn’t like it because it showed me a Britain that isn’t the fantasy that has lived in my head for forever. It is hard to have the lies we tell ourselves brought out into the light and exposed. I’ll never be able to re-read the Bond novels again after this. And that’s okay. This is going to color my experience with those novels and the movies. And that’s okay. Sometimes, the braces have to fall away.
Author Assessment:
Mr Winder sounds in the introduction like he doesn’t like Britain, like he’s disgusted with the Britain that existed in the mid-World War interregnum. And he doesn’t sound like he likes Ian Fleming very much. Though in truthfulness, the way Fleming is described here, I doubt that I would have liked him either.
Winder’s style is interesting and feels personal.
Though the story purports to be about Bond, the world he created and that he was created by and that he is mentioned on every other page, this is tangentially at best about Bond and is more along the lines of a diatribe against what Britain was and what she became in the 1900s. The book is anti-royalist, anti-Conservative, anti-Labour, and is essentially anti-British. This isn’t a love story to the Britain that existed across this era.
I love the way this is written. But there is a bit of feeling like I am being made to look at myself naked in the mirror or to stare at my own feet. Confronting your foibles through the writing of someone else and having a hero be undressed in this fashion is jarring.
Case by case basis, I would absolutely give anything else written by this author a look.
Editorial Assessment:
Could have benefited from the editor drawing the narrative back onto the path a time or three, especially in the introductory chapter.
Knee Jerk Reaction:
glad I read it
Disposition of Book:
Irving Public Library
Irving, TX
Would recommend to:
history buffs, the hardcore James Bond nerd, post war Britain aficionados
______________________________________________________________________________
Errata:
Ian Fleming once had an ongoing affair with the mother of Chris Blackwell. Chris Blackwell and Island Records helped bring Jamaican music out to the world. A ton of artists in many genres found their way through Island Records over the years.
August 31, 2025
Wow.
Winder fills us Yanks in on a plethora of British history we never learned in school, and how all this adds up to the development and embrasure of James Bond. Basically a pulp spinoff of Fleming's light and upper crust travels through the world in WWII, his smoking, drinking, womanizing, leanings toward S&M, and little accountability for it all, Bond hit Britain at a time of unimaginable upheaval - WWII collapsed their global empire. No more India. No more Africa. No more Asia. Jobs disappeared - no more coal industry, no more world shipping for their own colonies, no more heavy aircraft industy - jobs fled, people - used to being on rations in the war - had to tighten their belts even further. The aristocracy lost everything to egalitarian taxes and new openness, losing their elite status above the masses.
And into this walks Bond, a master of the Old School, who told all the Old Geezers who were struggling with changing times that it was okay, England was still best at this, everything was going to work out in the end, as he took out those troublesome races that bothered England in WWII and in emancipating their countries from Imperialism - Nigerians, Japanese, Koreans, etc. While the books are vastly different than the movies - Fleming died by Thunderball, and the scripts took more and more liberties - both are filled with qualities we frown on today, but made the Old Guard happy to see their old lives still intact.
Winder and I, though contemporaries, are from opposite sides of the pond, and while he sees one thing in the films (not disagreeing with him), I revel in the film for entirely different reasons: I'm not a British citizen, so I don't carry all the baggage of British History and Bond. I love the films simply because they ARE laughable at times. No one takes them seriously (until Craig, perhaps). They are light fun, even if they explode our imaginations far more than the movies (or books) warranted. Yes, we know that Moore is way too old on screen in View to a Kill, and Tanya Roberts may be the worst Bond girl ever, but it doesn't make us love the film any less.
What I do find most interesting is that, for all the history details Winder throws in about Post-War Britain, and the effect of the pulpy, violent, and misogynistic Bond novels on young boys, it perfectly fits the research in Peter Vronsky's book, American Serial Killers, the Epidemic Years, with a massive spike in *British* serial killers 1953-1983. When your data can be backed up internationally, you're probably really on to something.
My biggest problem with the book is it came out in 2006, which means he barely speaks of Dalton or Brosnan's incarnations, and nothing, of course, on Daniel Craig's total revamping of the character. I would love to know his thoughts on that, and I just may wind up writing to him to ask.
Interesting and thought-provoking. Now I'm rewatching a number of the movies, examining his points.
Winder fills us Yanks in on a plethora of British history we never learned in school, and how all this adds up to the development and embrasure of James Bond. Basically a pulp spinoff of Fleming's light and upper crust travels through the world in WWII, his smoking, drinking, womanizing, leanings toward S&M, and little accountability for it all, Bond hit Britain at a time of unimaginable upheaval - WWII collapsed their global empire. No more India. No more Africa. No more Asia. Jobs disappeared - no more coal industry, no more world shipping for their own colonies, no more heavy aircraft industy - jobs fled, people - used to being on rations in the war - had to tighten their belts even further. The aristocracy lost everything to egalitarian taxes and new openness, losing their elite status above the masses.
And into this walks Bond, a master of the Old School, who told all the Old Geezers who were struggling with changing times that it was okay, England was still best at this, everything was going to work out in the end, as he took out those troublesome races that bothered England in WWII and in emancipating their countries from Imperialism - Nigerians, Japanese, Koreans, etc. While the books are vastly different than the movies - Fleming died by Thunderball, and the scripts took more and more liberties - both are filled with qualities we frown on today, but made the Old Guard happy to see their old lives still intact.
Winder and I, though contemporaries, are from opposite sides of the pond, and while he sees one thing in the films (not disagreeing with him), I revel in the film for entirely different reasons: I'm not a British citizen, so I don't carry all the baggage of British History and Bond. I love the films simply because they ARE laughable at times. No one takes them seriously (until Craig, perhaps). They are light fun, even if they explode our imaginations far more than the movies (or books) warranted. Yes, we know that Moore is way too old on screen in View to a Kill, and Tanya Roberts may be the worst Bond girl ever, but it doesn't make us love the film any less.
What I do find most interesting is that, for all the history details Winder throws in about Post-War Britain, and the effect of the pulpy, violent, and misogynistic Bond novels on young boys, it perfectly fits the research in Peter Vronsky's book, American Serial Killers, the Epidemic Years, with a massive spike in *British* serial killers 1953-1983. When your data can be backed up internationally, you're probably really on to something.
My biggest problem with the book is it came out in 2006, which means he barely speaks of Dalton or Brosnan's incarnations, and nothing, of course, on Daniel Craig's total revamping of the character. I would love to know his thoughts on that, and I just may wind up writing to him to ask.
Interesting and thought-provoking. Now I'm rewatching a number of the movies, examining his points.
December 17, 2025
Bond, James Bond; it's the name of the world's most famous secret agent. But Bond was created in the tobacco-stained, gin-fueled mind of one man, a writer who perhaps exaggerated his own wartime activities in the interest of making a once-powerful empire feel better about itself in its twilight years. What Ian Fleming created in the Fifties still has an enormous sway among the reading and viewing public, certainly judging from the frequent 007-related YouTube rabbit holes I fall through. Am I a fan? Well, maybe. But I'm more a fan of this book than I am of most of the films.
"The Man Who Saved Britain," by Simon Winder, is another re-read for me; much like "The Bad Guys Won," it's a book that I first encountered sometime during my tenure at a university library, reading when I was supposed to be shelving books (though to be fair, said shelving wouldn't have taken eight hours, so I don't think my bosses would be too pissed). It's a social history of not just James Bond but his world, the world of the British Empire as it ceased to be and as the world passed England by. For some reason I remembered this book as being more positive about Bond; it's actually pretty scathing in places, usually deservedly so but at times a little too mean even for me (I *like* Roger Moore as Bond, though that may be more that he was the first one I knew of as 007). But it's a fair critique of the era.
Winder chronicles the Bond franchise, from page to screen, through his own tortured fandom, and he reframes the world's most famous secret agent as an avatar for an inflated sense of national self-importance that ignored the ignominy of Britain's slide into irrelevance after the Second World War. As the country lost its colonial territories all over the world and the sun began to set on the Empire, it was only natural for Fleming (a racist boozehound with sadomasochistic tendencies) would create a deadly agent who endeavored to reassure the public that England was still the leading superpower. All the subsequent spy fiction that arose in opposition to Bond (Le Carre, Deighton, etc.) couldn't compete with the suave ladies' man who could dispatch a fellow agent as smoothly as he could a dry martini.
I've actually started to read the 007 novels, and they're just as terrible as Winder describes here (albeit addictively so). The films I have a soft spot for, even as I acknowledge how rote and clichéd they often are. There's something comforting about them that makes me complicit in perpetuating the myth of Britain still being a world power, I guess. It might just be that, in the times between my first and second reading of this book, I'm less prone to agree with Winder that 007 is awful (he objectively is, but his fictional vehicles whether book or film might have some redeeming value?). All in all, though, this is a hell of a lot of fun, and I'm glad that I finally got around to revisiting it.
"The Man Who Saved Britain," by Simon Winder, is another re-read for me; much like "The Bad Guys Won," it's a book that I first encountered sometime during my tenure at a university library, reading when I was supposed to be shelving books (though to be fair, said shelving wouldn't have taken eight hours, so I don't think my bosses would be too pissed). It's a social history of not just James Bond but his world, the world of the British Empire as it ceased to be and as the world passed England by. For some reason I remembered this book as being more positive about Bond; it's actually pretty scathing in places, usually deservedly so but at times a little too mean even for me (I *like* Roger Moore as Bond, though that may be more that he was the first one I knew of as 007). But it's a fair critique of the era.
Winder chronicles the Bond franchise, from page to screen, through his own tortured fandom, and he reframes the world's most famous secret agent as an avatar for an inflated sense of national self-importance that ignored the ignominy of Britain's slide into irrelevance after the Second World War. As the country lost its colonial territories all over the world and the sun began to set on the Empire, it was only natural for Fleming (a racist boozehound with sadomasochistic tendencies) would create a deadly agent who endeavored to reassure the public that England was still the leading superpower. All the subsequent spy fiction that arose in opposition to Bond (Le Carre, Deighton, etc.) couldn't compete with the suave ladies' man who could dispatch a fellow agent as smoothly as he could a dry martini.
I've actually started to read the 007 novels, and they're just as terrible as Winder describes here (albeit addictively so). The films I have a soft spot for, even as I acknowledge how rote and clichéd they often are. There's something comforting about them that makes me complicit in perpetuating the myth of Britain still being a world power, I guess. It might just be that, in the times between my first and second reading of this book, I'm less prone to agree with Winder that 007 is awful (he objectively is, but his fictional vehicles whether book or film might have some redeeming value?). All in all, though, this is a hell of a lot of fun, and I'm glad that I finally got around to revisiting it.
April 8, 2020
I have very much enjoyed Simon's other books, and I like a Bond film, so this was an easy choice to read. It isn't an especially straightforward topic to cover however. A mixture of autobiography, socio-political history and film/literary criticism, this is his look back at Ian Fleming's James Bond books, their place in British culture, with a sideways swipe at the movies.
It's very entertaining. Simon is a cautious Fleming fan, but not uncritically, and he has a lot of fun contrasting what they had to say about Britain at a time when the country was involved in its headlong retreat from Empire and Great Power status. The 007 novels posit this country as one that still matters, where its opinions and attitude are matters of authority and command respect, whereas in reality things were quite different. This made them a weird sort of comfort blanket, a bastion of hope while the UK's economy nosedived and all those imperial territories peeled away. The clash between Bond and the bitter truth was stark, and read now the novels speak of a nation that clearly didn't exist at all, and a harsher take would be to see the effect ripple to today's politics. How much of the Brexit debate was mired in the vain hope that Britain can still carry on alone, 'we don't need Europe' or at least 'they need us more than we need them', and if you don't agree then where's your sense of patriotism...?
A warning. Simon has little but scorn for the Bond films, especially once the first few were done with and the series limped on into the 1970s. Watching these movies has always been easy viewing for me, but now they seem rather silly and I would probably be best putting my film-watching eyes elsewhere because, as much as I feel like defending them, the fact is he's right - they're largely terrible, sometimes terrible with some style, but not very good all the same and at times borderline offensive.
Another warning. There are times here when I actually laughed out loud. One bit of reflection makes me giggle now in the remembering of it, Simon's memory of being in boarding school, where he and his dorm mates try and recreate the sexy credits sequence of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN by getting the smaller boys to strip naked and dance alluringly while someone else switches the light on and off. Maurice Binder it ain't.
It's very entertaining. Simon is a cautious Fleming fan, but not uncritically, and he has a lot of fun contrasting what they had to say about Britain at a time when the country was involved in its headlong retreat from Empire and Great Power status. The 007 novels posit this country as one that still matters, where its opinions and attitude are matters of authority and command respect, whereas in reality things were quite different. This made them a weird sort of comfort blanket, a bastion of hope while the UK's economy nosedived and all those imperial territories peeled away. The clash between Bond and the bitter truth was stark, and read now the novels speak of a nation that clearly didn't exist at all, and a harsher take would be to see the effect ripple to today's politics. How much of the Brexit debate was mired in the vain hope that Britain can still carry on alone, 'we don't need Europe' or at least 'they need us more than we need them', and if you don't agree then where's your sense of patriotism...?
A warning. Simon has little but scorn for the Bond films, especially once the first few were done with and the series limped on into the 1970s. Watching these movies has always been easy viewing for me, but now they seem rather silly and I would probably be best putting my film-watching eyes elsewhere because, as much as I feel like defending them, the fact is he's right - they're largely terrible, sometimes terrible with some style, but not very good all the same and at times borderline offensive.
Another warning. There are times here when I actually laughed out loud. One bit of reflection makes me giggle now in the remembering of it, Simon's memory of being in boarding school, where he and his dorm mates try and recreate the sexy credits sequence of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN by getting the smaller boys to strip naked and dance alluringly while someone else switches the light on and off. Maurice Binder it ain't.
September 20, 2020
Two weeks ago, I had never heard of Simon Winder. I read a review of his latest work, and he sounded an interesting fellow. This book's title intrigued me. It is not for everyone. Winder, an outside the box writer (reminding me somewhat of the way the independent historian Thomas Fleming approaches subjects), makes the case that the James Bond, the creation of Ian Fleming's imagination, worked as a cultural antidote for Britain in the throes of its loss of empire. Winder is an amusing writer, regardless of what one makes of his argument or topic, calling Bond "the Robin Hood of British imperialists' darkest hour." That made me laugh. Or this about the 60s film version of Casino Royale: "This David Niven/ Woody Allen horror is rarely seen and effectively has nothing to do with Bond -- or anything. It is cruel that Bond should be played by David Niven -- one of the essential British actors of the forties who somehow went completely wrong and spent the rest of his career pimping to some deep-seated American wish to see British twerpy ineffectuality in action." Pretty good, huh? And of 'M' he writes: "He, therefore, incarnates in its perfect form the Conservative ideal: of patrician omnicompetence over a silent, uncomprehending, safe, passive flock." And, "That the security of the democratic world should be in the hands of such a limited man makes M's role in effect savagely satirical-- it was such figures who had presided over all the disasters of the era and who so singularly failed to see that British intelligence's most crucial role had in practice been the unhappy one of siphoning off Anglo-American secrets straight to the Russians." I find this all hilarious stuff. An English person might appreciate it more as an analysis of popular culture of the recent UK past. Anyroad, if it sounds to your taste, it can be an intelligent delight.
April 23, 2020
Well I hate to say it but I found this a bit uneven. I have given enthusiastic reviews to some of Winder’s previous books but this one….ho hum. There are two problems here. One is that Winder doesn’t really like the whole James Bond thing, and if you picked this up because you are a Bond fan then you are almost certainly going to be disappointed or even outraged that Winder does such a thorough job of trashing Bond, Fleming, and just about everything else British. And this leads into the second problem, which is that Winder doesn’t really like anything about Britain except his cosy, left wing, very well off and cosmopolitan North London bit of it.
Now I picked this up because Winder wrote it, not because I’m a Bond fanboy, so the first problem doesn’t apply to me. And the second one shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did because I have lots of friends who inhabit that same bubble that Winder does. Indeed, Winder himself was one such friend: we were contemporaries at Oxford in the 1980’s, though I have not seen him since. In my memory hearing him talk was like sipping fine champagne, and his previous books were a joyful rediscovery of an entertaining raconteur. I was prepared to listen to and to read almost anything he had to say. But now, I’m not so sure.
There are still many things here to enjoy, but for me it is spoiled by the querulous, carping tone of a self-hating lefty Londoner. I hate having to write this, but honesty compels me. Maybe the years have changed us both, and we’ve both become a bit less tolerant in very different ways. Eheu fugaces labuntur anni…
Now I picked this up because Winder wrote it, not because I’m a Bond fanboy, so the first problem doesn’t apply to me. And the second one shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did because I have lots of friends who inhabit that same bubble that Winder does. Indeed, Winder himself was one such friend: we were contemporaries at Oxford in the 1980’s, though I have not seen him since. In my memory hearing him talk was like sipping fine champagne, and his previous books were a joyful rediscovery of an entertaining raconteur. I was prepared to listen to and to read almost anything he had to say. But now, I’m not so sure.
There are still many things here to enjoy, but for me it is spoiled by the querulous, carping tone of a self-hating lefty Londoner. I hate having to write this, but honesty compels me. Maybe the years have changed us both, and we’ve both become a bit less tolerant in very different ways. Eheu fugaces labuntur anni…
December 8, 2021
Part film studies, part personal history, part social critique and literature review, this was a very entertaining look at James Bond (books and films) and his place in British and world wide society. The author pulled in an amazing amount of historic and literary and film anecdotes and made a cohesive unit. I am not a huge James Bond fan, have never read any of the books, but am very familiar with the films, and I think many folks would get a lot more out of this than they would expect.
I don't remember when I ran across this title, (it helps to work at a major academic library) but serendipity led me to it, and after putting it off for several years I finally let it rise in my "to read" list and I am glad I did. Recommended for film and history buffs, or anyone who enjoys a well written study on a topic they didn't think to look at.
I don't remember when I ran across this title, (it helps to work at a major academic library) but serendipity led me to it, and after putting it off for several years I finally let it rise in my "to read" list and I am glad I did. Recommended for film and history buffs, or anyone who enjoys a well written study on a topic they didn't think to look at.
September 29, 2020
The Man Who Saved Britain is technically a pop culture book but honestly it serves its best purpose as a (very) brief summation of the British Empire's gradual collapse and the sociological impact it had right after the war. As pop culture observations, Winder is funny as ever, but his Bond Takes are literally of the most sleep-inducing GenX "everything after YOLT sucks" type, with Moore and DAD the most recurring butt of the gags. Screw you, old man! Bond is at his best when he's goofy!
My favorite part was (of course) Bond being flustered and terrified of lesbians. "Well I'm very sorry but... but I CAN'T HELP THEM"
My favorite part was (of course) Bond being flustered and terrified of lesbians. "Well I'm very sorry but... but I CAN'T HELP THEM"
December 4, 2023
Its been a good 10 or 15 years since I read this book but it still resonates today. I was particularly impressed by Winder's thesis of Britain emerging victorious but impotent after the Second World War. I read once in Life magazine that Ian Fleming met someone on a deserted dirt road in Europe and said that he was going to write the greatest spy story ever told. I have to agree that Fleming indeed fulfilled his bold statement. Tom Clancy and John Le Carre have nothing on Fleming. In an era of American dominance Britain has nothing to offer but the King, fish and chips, Carling lager and the world's greatest fictional spy.
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