Gray's Anatomy

By John Gray

While justly acclaimed as the closest, most successful military partnership in history, the "special relationship" forged between the United States and Britain during World War II was anything but the inevitable alliance it appears to be in hindsight. As the countries of Western Europe fell one by one to Hitler, and Britain alone resisted him, aid from the U.S. was late, expensive, and reluctantly granted by an isolationist government that abhorred the idea of another world war.

Citizens of London is the behind-the-scenes story of the slow, difficult growth of the Anglo-American wartime alliance, told from the perspective of three key Americans in London who played vital roles in creating it and making it work. In her close-focus, character-driven narrative, Lynne Olson, former White House journalist and LA Times Book Prize finalist for her last book, Troublesome Young Men, sets the three Americans - Averell Harriman, Edward R. Murrow, and John Gilbert Winant - at the heart of her dramatic story.

Harriman was the rich, well-connected director of President Roosevelt's controversial Lend-Lease program in which the U.S., a still neutral country, "loaned" military equipment to the UK; Murrow, the handsome, innovative head of CBS News, was the first person to broadcast over live, on-location radio to the American public, and Winant, the least known but most crucial of the three, was the shy former New Hampshire governor who became the new U.S. ambassador to England after Joseph Kennedy quit the post and fled the country as bombs rained down around him.

Citizens of London opens in 1941 at the bleakest period of the war, when Britain withstood nine months of nightly bomb attacks and food and supplies were running out as German ships and U-boats had the island nation surrounded. Churchill was demanding and imploring FDR to help, but the U.S. did its best to ignore England's desperate plight. It was the work of these three key men, Olson argues, that eventually changed American attitudes. So above all this is a human story, focusing on the individuals who shaped this important piece of history. Key to the book is the extremely close relationship between Winston Churchill and the three Americans, and indeed, so intimate were their ties that all three men had love affairs with women in Churchill's family.

Set in the dangerous, vibrant world of wartorn London, Citizens of London is rich, highly readable, engrossing history, the story of three influential men and their immediate circle who shaped the world we live in.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Nov 5, 2010
• ISBN: 9780385673679

John Gray

John Gray, Ph.D., is the author of the international phenomenon Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, which sold over a staggering 15 million copies worldwide. An internationally-renowned authority on communication and relationships, he is also a psychologist, writer and lecturer who has been conducting seminars in major cities for over 20 years. John lives in California with his wife Bonnie.

Reviews for Gray's Anatomy

[dmsteyn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An extremely well-written and informative collection of essays concerned, broadly, with political matters, though some are more concerned with social commentary. Gray is considered a ‘conservative’ public intellectual, but that does not mean that he propounds a hidebound ideology in his essays. Clearly, he is generally conservative in his worldview, but he has little patience for certain strains of conservative thought. An example would be the neo-conservatives, who came to such prominence during George W. Bush’s stint in the White House. Gray is excoriating towards them, and he has little good to say for strongly doctrinaire libertarians, either. His range of interests is not confined to the political, as mentioned above; he quotes poets, dramatists and novelists, and he is obviously extremely well-read. He has, for instance, a whole essay based on Joseph Conrad’s works. Some of the social issues he confronts are the growing influence of the New Atheists, and the rise of the conservation movement (‘the Greens’). The essays date all the way from the seventies to contemporary times, but they are rarely irrelevant.When I say that Gray’s essays are well-written, I am actually understating Gray’s style. His writing is incisive and clear, always erudite, and rarely too academic. Yes, there is jargon here, but it tends to go with the territory. I must admit that I finally learned the meaning of many words which have been vaguely floating around my consciousness, but which I never bothered to look up before: irredentist, indefeasible, irrefragable – and those are only the i’s. Shamefully, I must admit that I usually just skip over terms that I do not understand. But, since reading Gray’s concentrated text, I have made a resolution to always look up difficult and unknown words, wherever they may occur. I found my understanding of Gray’s arguments to be greatly enriched by a precise comprehension of his words, which seems obvious, but I am astounded how often people (myself included) fail to argue properly because they do not understand the terms of the debate.Before getting to the good things about Gray’s exploration of his topics, a few grumbles. Some of his essays seemed just a tad dated. Strangely, this was most evident in his writings about the Bush presidency, and not those on, for example, the Thatcher years. Perhaps this is because familiarity breeds contempt, or because the Bush essays are more concerned with what was then contemporary policy. Arguably, the essays which stood the test of time best are those which, while based on the political issues of their day, still manage to find a relevance to more general human concerns. Some more nit-picking. I found two of Gray’s essays somewhat out of character: ‘Torture: a modest proposal’ and ‘A modest defence of George W. Bush’. Anyone who has read Jonathan Swift, or has a reasonable general knowledge, should recognise the homage paid to Swift’s ‘A modest proposal’ in the titles. In it, Swift proposed (satirically, of course) that the impoverished Irish population of his day could alleviate their circumstances by selling their babies to the rich – to be eaten. If you did not catch the reference, don’t feel too bad: many (most?) of Gray’s initial readers also didn’t, and believed that he was genuinely proposing that torture was a necessary evil/good. Apparently, he still receives letters from aggrieved civil libertarians complaining about this! In any case, my problem with these two essays is not their satirical character. Rather, I found them an uneven mixture of subtly-convincing arguments and heavy-handedness. What I mean is that, at times, Gray had even me unsure whether he was being satirical or whether he was writing in good faith. But, at other times, he gives such broad hints that he is not being serious, that I cannot believe some people actually accused him of promoting torture (or Bush’s policies). Whatever the result, I found these essays a little unbalanced, and preferred the straight essays, which make up the majority of the collection.Besides these quibbles, I found myself intellectually stimulated throughout by Gray’s arguments, even when I disagreed strongly with them. I am for instance not as strongly opposed as Gray to the idea of progress in human affairs, which he calls a ‘pernicious myth’, although he has convinced me that most attempts to improve humanity end in utopian farce or horror. I also enjoyed his essay on the New Atheists, in which he clearly shows that much of their creed is just that – a creed of a very dogmatic bend, with their atheism as ‘a hangover from Christian faith’. This is to simplify things greatly, as one would have to follow his nuanced arguments to their end to get a clear idea of their import. This is of course a problem that all reviews of densely argued books suffer – one can hardly convey the complexity of the writer’s argument in a short review. But I hope that this is at least an interesting segue into Gray’s work, and that I might whet a few appetites of those interested in political and social commentary. Anyone who feels sceptical towards claims such as Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ thesis, or who questions the dogmas of hidebound conservatism or secular liberalism, will find this book interesting, or provoking, at least. I grew up in a liberal atmosphere, but I still found this foray into nominal conservative territory invigorating.My favourite essay (because most congenial to my interests) was ‘Theodore Powys and the life of contemplation’. I admit to never having heard of Theodore Powys, yet, like his brothers, the more famous John Cowper, and Llewelyn, he was also a writer. And what an interesting portrait Gray paints of him! His books sound fascinating, easily as intriguing as John Cowper’s. Listen to this description of Unclay, his last novel: ‘John Death is God’s messenger, instructed to ‘scythe’ or ‘unclay’ two inhabitants of the village of Dodder. Losing the parchment that contains their names, he determines to spend the summer in the village. Throughout his stay he gives and receives joy, relishing sexual encounters with the village women and rejoicing in his mission of bringing release to suffering humanity.’ That sounds right up my alley, and if it is somewhat reminiscent of ‘Meet Joe Black’ and even Terry Pratchett’s Death (well, not the sex), then one has to remember who has precedence here. It is a shame that most of his books are out-of-print; hopefully, the situation will soon be rectified.I leave you with one of my favourite quotes from Gray’s book. It is from Michael Oakeshott, and serves as a warning to those enamoured of scientism:The project of science, as I understand it, is to solve the mystery, to wake us from our dream, to destroy the myth; and were this project fully achieved, not only should we find ourselves awake in a profound darkness, but a dreadful insomnia would settle upon mankind, not less intolerable for being only a nightmare.