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Best of Enemies: Britain and Germany: 100 Years of Truth and Lies
This is the stunning popular history of 100 years (1845-1945) of Anglo-German love/hate. Richard Milton exposes the secrets of a relationship steeped in mutual admiration, blood and propaganda. In August 1914, Britain's first act of war was not to mobilise its army or the Grand Fleet. It was to cut cables preventing German propaganda from reaching American newspapers. This war of words would quickly become as vicious as the slaughter on the Western Front. For a century, Britain and Germany had been closer than any other two countries. Germany was Britain's biggest export market, and vice versa. Germans adopted English dress, customs and manners. German thinking on race, national identity, eugenics, and racial supremacy also had its roots in British thinkers like Darwin, Huxley and Galton. Even as late as the Nazi era, Hess, Himmler, Goering and Hitler himself remained passionate Anglophiles. During WW1, however, Germany, Britain and the USA spent billions on clandestine propaganda to blacken each other's reputations. This gargantuan effort gave birth to the PR industry itself - later seized upon by Nazi propagandist Goebbels to devastating effect. Richard Milton's expertly written popular history gives a fresh perspective on this tumultuous, painful love-hate relationship, and is also a brilliant study of propaganda itself - now more than ever a vital weapon of war.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published September 14, 2004
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About the author
Richard Milton
27 books70 followersRichard Milton is a journalist and writer who writes stories most sensible people wouldn't touch with a bargepole.
His best-selling critique of Darwinism as an ideology, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, caused a storm of controversy. His study of Anglo-German relations, Best of Enemies, has been turned into a film for German and British television. His latest non-fiction title, The Ministry of Spin, reveals how the Post-war Labour government used the facilities of the wartime Ministry of Information in secret for propaganda purposes.
His book about corporate misbehaviour, Bad Company, was chosen by The Sunday Times as its Book of The Week.
Milton also writes offbeat fiction: Dead Secret, is a mystery of the paranormal in everyday life. Investigative journalist Tony Gabriel stumbles onto his biggest ever story when he inherits the papers of a long-dead historian - and finds himself the target of an ancient secret society. Are they just rich, powerful people playing an elaborate game, or have they truly gained the power to see into the future?
His book, The Glass Harmonica, is a mystery thriller. Concert pianist Julia Franklin is heir to an inheritance worth a billion dollars - enough to bankrupt America's oldest bank when the trust matures. Miles Bartholemew, of Bartholemew Equity and Trust, has to find the heirs of the Franklin trust and deal with them permanently, before his family's bank is ruined.
A third crime thriller is, Conjuring For Beginners. When legendary con-artist Ferdy Daniels dies alone and penniless, his daughter, Rosa, inherits his victims, who are convinced she was his partner in crime. To keep one jump ahead of them - and stay alive - Rosa must unravel Ferdy's web of deceits. But to re-trace her father's footsteps, she must learn to become as quick-witted and cunning as Ferdy, the master magician.
Finally, True Stories: Mysteries of Crime and Punishment, is a collection of short stories with a difference. Every story in the book is true - except one. Some tell of crimes that have gone unpunished by the law. Some are crimes against laws that are unwritten. And some are crimes that exist only in the mind.
His best-selling critique of Darwinism as an ideology, Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, caused a storm of controversy. His study of Anglo-German relations, Best of Enemies, has been turned into a film for German and British television. His latest non-fiction title, The Ministry of Spin, reveals how the Post-war Labour government used the facilities of the wartime Ministry of Information in secret for propaganda purposes.
His book about corporate misbehaviour, Bad Company, was chosen by The Sunday Times as its Book of The Week.
Milton also writes offbeat fiction: Dead Secret, is a mystery of the paranormal in everyday life. Investigative journalist Tony Gabriel stumbles onto his biggest ever story when he inherits the papers of a long-dead historian - and finds himself the target of an ancient secret society. Are they just rich, powerful people playing an elaborate game, or have they truly gained the power to see into the future?
His book, The Glass Harmonica, is a mystery thriller. Concert pianist Julia Franklin is heir to an inheritance worth a billion dollars - enough to bankrupt America's oldest bank when the trust matures. Miles Bartholemew, of Bartholemew Equity and Trust, has to find the heirs of the Franklin trust and deal with them permanently, before his family's bank is ruined.
A third crime thriller is, Conjuring For Beginners. When legendary con-artist Ferdy Daniels dies alone and penniless, his daughter, Rosa, inherits his victims, who are convinced she was his partner in crime. To keep one jump ahead of them - and stay alive - Rosa must unravel Ferdy's web of deceits. But to re-trace her father's footsteps, she must learn to become as quick-witted and cunning as Ferdy, the master magician.
Finally, True Stories: Mysteries of Crime and Punishment, is a collection of short stories with a difference. Every story in the book is true - except one. Some tell of crimes that have gone unpunished by the law. Some are crimes against laws that are unwritten. And some are crimes that exist only in the mind.
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August 8, 2011According to this book, Darwin should shoulder a fair part of the blame for the Holocaust. Also, "The Luftwaffe bombs that spread death and destruction from the skies over London in 1940 were a direct result of the thinking of Charles Darwin [and some other learned men]." You may be unsurprised to learn that Milton's other works include Shattering the Myths of Darwinism.
For some reason, multiple points and quotes are repeated throughout the book. Bernard Shaw and D.H. Lawrence's comments on eugenics both get two outings, for example, on p6 and p116-117.
Anyway, this book had some interesting points, but I felt like the author's personal view of things such as Darwinism heavily slanted his writing, so that parts of the book seemed less objective than others, without much to back up his claims.
For some reason, multiple points and quotes are repeated throughout the book. Bernard Shaw and D.H. Lawrence's comments on eugenics both get two outings, for example, on p6 and p116-117.
Anyway, this book had some interesting points, but I felt like the author's personal view of things such as Darwinism heavily slanted his writing, so that parts of the book seemed less objective than others, without much to back up his claims.
September 27, 2024
A bit of a strange book, it purports to be about the relationship between Germany and Britain yet it’s actually is about propaganda in the two wars and the middle section is about eugenics and feels like its accidentally been inserted from another book.
December 19, 2016
Students of British and World War history may have heard about relations between the British Royal and German Imperial families (Kaiser Wilhelm II was a grandson of Queen Victoria) and that Hitler professed admiration for the British but their understanding rarely goes beyond that. “Best of Enemies” fleshes out the ties that bound the two peoples, even while they were engaged in death struggles.
Author Richard Milton posits that Anglo-German ties were both personal and ideological. He illustrates the immense commercial trade that enriched each while making them rivals, the cultural exchanges that fertilized both as well as the friendships that developed from the various contacts. Milton claims that, prior to 1914, Britain’s “Special Relationship” was with Germany, not the United States. Among the examples of mutual admiration, he presents are that the British habit of wearing monocles originated in Britain and that Prince Edward’s appearance in a sailor suit both were imitated in Germany while Queen Victoria and Prince Albert spoke German at home.
The “Special Relationship” was so deeply rooted that it was fractured, but not severed, by the Great War. This book illustrates that concepts of racial superiority, derived at least in part from Darwinian theories of survival of the fittest, spawned policies in Britain and Germany that differed more in method that goals. The belief that some people were destined to rule while the role of others was to be subservient was manifested in different ways. In Liberal Britain, and Progressive United States, it was used to justify forced sterilization of undesirables (perhaps deplorables would be contemporary liberal terminology), the advocacy of birth control and the withholding of welfare benefits so as to minimize the numbers of lower peoples. In Germany belief in racial superiority would find its ultimate manifestation in the “Final Solution.” The author also recognizes the irony in the fact that Britain fought two wars with Germany to preserve the rights of small nations while holding a quarter of the world in its colonial embrace.
The other theme that runs through this book is the origin of propaganda as an instrument of war that evolved into the modern advertising industry. Upon the declaration of war in 1914 the British cut the cables that transmitted information from Germany to the outside world leaving German agents in neutral countries, most prominently the United States, to fight the propaganda war. The rise of motion pictures added another instrument to the propogandists’ tool box.
I think that the parallel themes of closeness between the two nations and the advancing science of public persuasion introduce a sense of disunity in this work. Some will not like this book because it includes some history that Britons (and Americans for that matter) would prefer to kept unacknowledged. As John Quincy Adams reminds us “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” While there is a great difference between force sterilization "for the protection and health of the state" that was upheld by the United States Supreme court in Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927) and massive extermination as practiced in Nazi Germany, readers can see how the seemingly contradictory policies share some common foundations.
The greatest value I find in this book is its ability to make seemingly irrational actions understandable. The claims that Hitler admired England and thought that he could negotiate a peace based on common ground and Hess’s flight to Scotland seem less the delusions of madmen than gross misunderstandings and miscalculations. I recommend this for readers with a well-informed familiarity with the World Wars who are willing to be challenged to a deeper understanding of some of their subtler influences.
I did receive a free copy of this book without an obligation to post a review.
Author Richard Milton posits that Anglo-German ties were both personal and ideological. He illustrates the immense commercial trade that enriched each while making them rivals, the cultural exchanges that fertilized both as well as the friendships that developed from the various contacts. Milton claims that, prior to 1914, Britain’s “Special Relationship” was with Germany, not the United States. Among the examples of mutual admiration, he presents are that the British habit of wearing monocles originated in Britain and that Prince Edward’s appearance in a sailor suit both were imitated in Germany while Queen Victoria and Prince Albert spoke German at home.
The “Special Relationship” was so deeply rooted that it was fractured, but not severed, by the Great War. This book illustrates that concepts of racial superiority, derived at least in part from Darwinian theories of survival of the fittest, spawned policies in Britain and Germany that differed more in method that goals. The belief that some people were destined to rule while the role of others was to be subservient was manifested in different ways. In Liberal Britain, and Progressive United States, it was used to justify forced sterilization of undesirables (perhaps deplorables would be contemporary liberal terminology), the advocacy of birth control and the withholding of welfare benefits so as to minimize the numbers of lower peoples. In Germany belief in racial superiority would find its ultimate manifestation in the “Final Solution.” The author also recognizes the irony in the fact that Britain fought two wars with Germany to preserve the rights of small nations while holding a quarter of the world in its colonial embrace.
The other theme that runs through this book is the origin of propaganda as an instrument of war that evolved into the modern advertising industry. Upon the declaration of war in 1914 the British cut the cables that transmitted information from Germany to the outside world leaving German agents in neutral countries, most prominently the United States, to fight the propaganda war. The rise of motion pictures added another instrument to the propogandists’ tool box.
I think that the parallel themes of closeness between the two nations and the advancing science of public persuasion introduce a sense of disunity in this work. Some will not like this book because it includes some history that Britons (and Americans for that matter) would prefer to kept unacknowledged. As John Quincy Adams reminds us “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” While there is a great difference between force sterilization "for the protection and health of the state" that was upheld by the United States Supreme court in Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927) and massive extermination as practiced in Nazi Germany, readers can see how the seemingly contradictory policies share some common foundations.
The greatest value I find in this book is its ability to make seemingly irrational actions understandable. The claims that Hitler admired England and thought that he could negotiate a peace based on common ground and Hess’s flight to Scotland seem less the delusions of madmen than gross misunderstandings and miscalculations. I recommend this for readers with a well-informed familiarity with the World Wars who are willing to be challenged to a deeper understanding of some of their subtler influences.
I did receive a free copy of this book without an obligation to post a review.
February 10, 2013
Not, as I thought, a review of 100 years of Anglo-German relations but a lazy, shoddy attempt to blame everyone from Darwin and Virginia Woolf to the entire English aristocracy for inspiring Hitler into emulating them. Entire off-topic passages - for example where the author fulminates against Britain's lack of a written constitution being the reason Blair was able to invade Iraq (didn't the US invade too and don't they have a written constitution? And what the hell has that got to do with Germany?). Very poor.
August 4, 2011
This is an excellent read on the strikingly similar and parallel cultures of the two peoples in the era leading to the two world wars. Something that is not often known. There is also quite a bit written on the history of PR and psyops during that period, which could prove useful for those studying into this area. Minor annoyance for someone who's picky (like me) - quite a few repetition of quotes as well as points the author wants to put across.
January 19, 2014
My first real read about propaganda. It make me to better understand the two WW and the relationship about the two countries. It's also a must read to everybody working in PR, Because, let's be honest, wars are won first through propaganda and then on the battlefields. WWI has grounded our modern society not only by mass production, with bombing of civil, with technological improvements but also with the marketing used by all manufactures to introduce new products and change our everyday life.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews