Twinbill

Peruvian-born Daniel Hannan is quick to point out that he doesn't think the actual English language helped "invent freedom" and create the modern world -- it's the people who spoke it and the societies they developed that did so.

In Inventing Freedom Hannan, a British citizen and member of the European Parliament, suggests that the culture of what he calls "the Anglosphere" is what a lot of people actually refer to when they speak about some of what the modern world derives from Western civilization. Aspects such as the rule of law, respect for individual property rights and other freedom-buttressing characteristics arose out of some peculiarities of English society that date back very far and which help such societies succeed.

Hannan suggests that some of the earliest immigrants to what would become England brought a tradition of settling disputes and creating laws from amongst the people themselves. Even if a tribe had a chieftain, or later a king, that ruler was himself subject to limitation by the laws of the land. Those he ruled could bring a complaint against him for transgressing those laws. In practice, such an act was usually limited to other fairly powerful people rather than the common folks -- it was the barons rather than the basket-weavers who brought King John to heel at Runnymede -- but it was still a restraint not seen as much in continental nations. Magna Carta wasn't a universal franchise or a declaration of equal rights regardless of race or sex, but it's hard to get to those things if you bypass it.

Over the history of the Anglosphere, many of its conflicts and revolutions have been about returning such rights to the people, or safeguarding them or expanding them, Hannan suggests. Even the American Revolution was sparked by movements that demanded for themselves the rights Englishmen had on the home island much more than it sought a separate nation. Hannan suggests today's Anglosphere is England, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, tentatively Ireland, to a greater and greater degree India and potentially South Africa. He suggests development of the latter three to the level that they are instituting legal and political structures that aim at holding their governments to account in the same way the ancient traditions held the king to account.

There's a lot to what Hannan says. Gandhi may have snarked that he thought Western civilization "would be a very good idea," but he was canny enough to know that the British who occupied his country had a society and a legal system which would ensure his nonviolent resistance would work, especially once he convinced the average John Bull of the rightness of Indian independence. The modern world's greatest (by which I mean worst) totalitarian systems -- National Socialism and Communism -- only gained tenuous footholds in Anglosphere nations (unless you include college campuses). The British Navy was essential to ending the slave trade.

Hannan probably overwrites his case. He acknowledges some of the Anglosphere's features in other nations, but doesn't dig too much into their history there. His look at English influence in India, although it acknowledges how such influence began as a very un-Anglospheric occupation, is kind of sketchy and could use detail.

But on the other hand he has a different point than reciting India's history or South Africa's history or that of the U.S., Canada or any of the others. And even if the English legal and political heritage he covers is more correlative than causative of some of the high points of the philosophies of liberty, politics and government, his survey is still significant food for thought on these matters.

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I should say up front that P.J. O'Rourke is one of my favorite authors, and was one even back when I was a good deal more liberal in my politics than I am today. I think no book describes exactly how modern government doesn't work better than his Parliament of Whores. His Eat the Rich and All the Trouble in the World do a better job of explaining economics and the problems of world poverty and ecological concerns, respectively, than any course or seminar I've ever heard on either set of topics. He is smarter, funnier and a much better writer than I am.

So my disappointment with The Baby Boom is probably magnified by my appreciation of his other work; for whatever reason O'Rourke starts out tilting at the foibles of his people (he was born in 1947) but seems to pull up before getting to a full charge.

O'Rourke sets the Baby Boom boundaries at 1946 and 1964 (other measurements use 1940 and 1960, but these are fluid). He begins by sorting subgroups within the Boom, calling the late-40s crew "seniors," the early-50s births the "juniors," late-50s "sophomores" and early-60s "freshmen." He defines each group by what kinds of cultural trends connect to it and (since these are Boomers) what kind of cultural debris it leaves behind.

But having sorted the groups, O'Rourke then spends most of the rest of the book on a memoir of his own Baby Boom experiences. The four classes enter that only as a way for him to point out how he's highlighting a selected slice of Boomer experience. The late Boom (such as myself) had some distinctly different experiences than did early-Boomers like O'Rourke.

The memoir is funny enough and it offers some departure points for observations on the impact of what O'Rourke calls the Boomer's "antinomian" culture (translation: Boomers are OK with rules until they have to follow them when they don't want to). But it leads to an unfocused closing essay that circles back to the primary Boomer obsession -- the self -- and details good things that have happened in the world since Boomers started showing up. It leaves out how many of those good things came via previous generation's leadership of the Boomers (in the same way that others led the Greatest Generation in saving the world in WWII), and glosses right over how Boomer narcissism hamstrings them in taking up that leadership mantle for those who follow them. It's almost as if the extended memoir gets O'Rourke feeling sentimental enough he's like a teacher who can't give a favorite student the deserved low grade. Parliament, Rich, and Trouble are worth re-reads and frequent consultation. Boom probably won't be.