Boris johnson is taking a fortnight’s holiday in Scotland, armed with a volume of Lucretius, William Boyd’s novel “Any Human Heart” and Brendan Simms’s “Britain’s Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation”. Few would begrudge him his break: he has lived a lifetime in the past year, having got divorced and remarried, had another child, almost died of covid-19 and struggled with the worst crisis since the second world war. But Bagehot would nevertheless suggest adding a fourth book to his pile—Julian Jackson’s “A Certain Idea of France: The Life of De Gaulle”. Though hefty, the book is enthralling, and offers a wealth of ideas with which to fill the empty box labelled “Johnsonism”.

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鲍里斯·约翰逊正在苏格兰度假两周，他带着一本卢克莱修的书、还有威廉·博伊德的《赤子之心》、以及布伦丹·西姆斯的《Britain’s Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation》。几乎没有人会对他的休假感到不满：在过去的一年里，他把自己的一生都给过了，离婚又再婚，又生了一个孩子，几乎死于新冠肺炎，还与二战以来爆发的最严重的危机作斗争。但是笔者还是建议在他的书集里再加上第四本书——朱利安·杰克逊的《法国的一个想法:夏尔·戴高乐的生活》。这本书虽然篇幅宏大，却引人入胜，还蕴含丰富的思想，可以填补“约翰逊主义”的空白。

Mr Johnson is keen on great men. He has written a biography of his hero Churchill and, modesty not coming naturally to a man who as a child announced that he would become “world king”, has recently taken to comparing himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt. But in many ways de Gaulle is a better fit than either. The French president saw eye to eye with Britain’s prime minister on the biggest issues.He regarded the nation-state as the basic building-block of civilisation. He opposed Britain’s membership of the EU on the grounds that Britain by its nature “looks to the sea, towards wider horizons”. He devoted his post-war career to restoring confidence and dynamism to a country that had lost the first in the war and had fallen behind in the second for decades.

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约翰逊崇敬伟人。他曾为英雄丘吉尔写了一本传记，约翰逊并不是天性谦逊的的人，他打小就宣称自己将成为“世界之王”，他最近将自己自比为富兰克林·德拉诺·罗斯福。但从很多方面来看，相比这两者，约翰逊更像戴高乐。这位法国总统在一些最大的问题上，与英国首相意见一致。戴高乐认为单一民族的独立国家是文明的基本组成部分。他反对英国加入欧盟，理由是英国本质上“以英吉利海峡为天堑，冷眼旁观于欧陆霸权棋局之外”。二战致使法国丧失了一流大国的地位，并落后沦为二流国家几十年，战后，戴高乐在任时一直致力于恢复法国的信心和活力。

Though Britain’s situation is hardly as desperate as France’s in 1945, there are similarities. The 2016 referendum spoke of profound dissatisfaction with the old regime. Confidence in national institutions is at a low ebb. Sections of the left identify “Britishness” with slavery and plunder while sections of the right want to build walls against modernity.

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尽管英国并没有像1945年的法国那样处于绝境，但两者的处境也有相似之处。2016年的公投谈到了对旧政权的深刻不满。人们对国家机构的信心沉入低谷。英国的左翼人士将“英国国民性”与奴隶制和掠夺等同起来，而右翼人士则想要建造一堵反对现代性的墙。

注释

1.keen on 热衷于，喜爱

I got quite keen on the idea
我对这个想法燃起了极大的热情。

2.see eye to eye with 与……看法一致

It is hardly possible for young people to see eye to eye with their parents on political issues.
在政治问题上，年轻人几乎不可能与他们的父母亲有一致的看法。

3.at a low ebb 处于低潮，处于衰退状态

The economy of the country was at a low ebb.
该国的经济处于衰退阶段。

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