‘CContinental people live sexual lives; The British have hot water bottles.” Hungarian journalist George Mikes saw it in How to Be an Alien (1946), one of the finest examples of the tradition of foreigners explaining themselves to Britain. From Voltaire to VS Naipaul, outsiders have often highlighted national peculiarities, exposing contradictions inherent in British life in a way that would otherwise go unnoticed. Helen von Bismarck’s Fantastic Kingdom is the latest contribution to the genre.
Von Bismarck, a distant relative of the Iron Chancellor, seems ideally suited for the task. The name alone gives his project a certain uniqueness; There is something almost Pynchonesque about the German historian of this name attempting to understand Britain for British people. Having grown up across Europe as the daughter of a diplomat, educated at the same school in Brussels as Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen, and a frequent visitor to the UK for two decades, she has a combination of distance and familiarity that can yield real insight. His grand theme is that Britain is an “astonishing, complex and wildly contradictory place”: a monarchy and a liberal democracy; A kingdom of four nations; Hostile to immigration yet remarkably pluralistic; Hierarchical yet surprisingly informal. These tensions provide the organizing principles of the book.
The problem is that von Bismarck repeatedly emphasizes her foreignness, but she often writes like an insider. The promise of an outsider’s view gives way to something closer to Westminster conventional wisdom. Certainly, von Bismarck is adept at identifying the contradictions and inconsistencies that bedevil British public life. He highlights Britain’s simultaneous reverence for tradition and selective amnesia about history, the strangeness of a supposedly status-conscious society in which everyone is on first-name terms, and the spectacle of Rory Stewart’s appeal for political seriousness being delivered from a circus tent. She also notes the irony of Boris Johnson advocating for Ukraine’s European future after Britain pulled out of the European Union.
Yet these subtle comments are overshadowed by the book’s fixation on Brexit. The standard-issue continental approach – that of an admirable country that has strayed from populism and provincialism – is practiced everywhere. The result is a strange time warp. Von Bismarck’s Britain appears to be frozen in its pre-pandemic intellectual landscape, perpetually condemned to reliving the referendum and its consequences.
Even more frustrating is von Bismarck’s reluctance to take his insights to their logical conclusions. When truly controversial issues arise, she exercises caution. When discussing Scottish independence, she avoids considering whether the costs of breaking the union might be justified. Confronted with Suella Braverman’s absurd rhetoric on immigration, he tells us that the former Home Secretary’s personal motivations are “beyond the scope of this book”.
This reserve is striking. Von Bismarck is neither a diplomat nor a civil servant, yet she writes as if Anglo-German relations depended on her discretion. The reason for this may lie in the intended audience of the book. Von Bismarck clearly tells us that she is writing for the British. Nevertheless, she feels compelled to explain that the country is “located by the sea”, that there are many supporters of independence in Scotland, and that shadow ministers scrutinize government departments. The upper classes read less reflections highlighting the opposite country than civics lessons on attacking the Daleks.
This is particularly disappointing because von Bismarck is well placed to offer comparisons that could enrich the book: between Britain’s unwritten constitution and Germany’s legalism, British pragmatism and Continental ambition, or Anglican vagueness and German sincerity. Instead, she spends most of her time explaining systems that her readers probably already understand.
Ultimately, Fantastic Kingdom lacks judgment. There is hardly a shortage of books trying to explain Britain itself, and readers seeking in-depth analysis may find more rewarding alternatives. Brian Harrison’s recently published Tomorrow, for example, covers much of this ground with greater accuracy and in considerably more detail.
The book ends with a sense that von Bismarck knew much more than he cares to say – and a desire for more of the sharp, memorable insights that have made George Mikes’s insider-outsider approach so enduring.
