#773: Andrew Roberts on The Habits of Churchill, Lessons from Napoleon, and The Holy Fire Inside Great Leaders

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4.6 • 17.4K Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2024

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Andrew Roberts has written twenty books, which have been translated into twenty-eight languages and have won thirteen literary prizes. These include Napoleon: A Life, Churchill: Walking with Destiny, and most recently, Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Gaza, which he co-authored with General David Petraeus.

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Timestamps:

[00:00:00] Start

[00:06:14] Expelled from Cranleigh school.

[00:07:14] Why MI6 considered Andrew for recruitment.

[00:09:56] The teacher who made history exciting to 10-year-old Andrew.

[00:13:05] Words Andrew avoids when writing about history.

[00:14:20] Are steady-nerved leaders naturally born or nurtured?

[00:16:05] The thinkers who influenced Winston Churchill and his sense of noblesse oblige.

[00:18:26] What made Napoleon Bonaparte the prime exemplar of war leadership?

[00:24:37] Lessons from Winston Churchill's autobiography, My Early Life.

[00:26:22] Napoleon's relationship with risk.

[00:29:26] Andrew's signed letter from Aldous Huxley.

[00:30:49] When historical figures carry a sense of personal destiny.

[00:33:07] The meeting Andrew wishes he could've witnessed as a fly on the wall.

[00:34:30] When historical villains carry a sense of personal destiny.

[00:37:14] What Churchill and Napoleon learned from their mistakes.

[00:39:38] "Dear Diary..."

[00:44:00] Maintaining creative flow during the writing process.

[00:47:18] On working with brilliant publisher Stuart Proffitt (aka Professor Perfect).

[00:52:53] Why are some significant figures immortalized while others go the way of Ozymandias?

[00:57:59] Thoughts on personal legacy.

[00:59:18] Fiction favorites.

[01:02:05] Being objective about the history of imperialism.

[01:03:31] The challenges of teaching and learning history today.

[01:06:40] Why "Study history" is Andrew's coat of arms motto.

[01:10:22] What Andrew, as a history expert, sees for the future.

[01:14:01] Counteracting natural pessimism.

[01:15:34] What to expect from Andrew's latest book Conflict (co-authored with David Petraeus).

[01:19:21] Upcoming book projects.

[01:20:26] Parting thoughts.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello boys and girls ladies and germs this is Tim Ferris welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris show
0:05.2	where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers or
0:09.6	deconstruct those who deconstruct world-class performers in the case of today's guest who is Andrew Roberts.
0:16.0	Andrew Roberts has written 20 books which have been translated into 28 languages and have won 13 literary prizes. These include masters and
0:24.9	commanders the Storm of War a new history of the Second World War Napoleon a
0:29.5	life Churchill walking with destiny George the third the life and reign of Britain's
0:34.9	most misunderstood monarch and most recently conflict the evolution of
0:39.4	warfare from 1945 to Gaza which he co-authored with General David Petraeus. Lord
0:45.3	Roberts is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical
0:49.2	Society, the Bonnie and Tom McClosky Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution at
0:54.8	Stanford and a visiting professor at the Department of War Studies at Kings
0:59.6	College London. He is also a member of the House of Lords. You can find all things Andrew
1:04.7	at Andrew hyphen Roberts.net online and he is also on X the artist formerly known
1:10.4	as Twitter at X.com slash A Roberts underscore Andrew and we're going to get
1:15.8	to the interview but quickly before that just a few words about our sponsors who
1:20.3	make this show possible. In the last handful of years I've become very interested in environmental toxins avoiding
1:27.7	microplastics and many other commonly found compounds all over the place.
1:33.4	One place I looked is in the kitchen.
1:35.9	Many people don't realize just how toxic
1:38.0	their cookware is or can be.
1:40.5	A lot of non-stick pans, practically all of them, can release harmful forever chemicals.
1:45.0	P-F-A-S, into your food, your home, and then ultimately that ends up in your body.
	...

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