Regular readers of World News and Prophecy know we understand the modern nations of Great Britain and America are the inheritors of the promises made to the biblical patriarch Abraham by God beginning in Genesis 12. There God told Abraham to go to a far country and he and his descendants would become a great people. The details of the promise are unveiled throughout Genesis to Abraham's descendants, Isaac and Jacob. Jacob, before he died, passed on the promises to his grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph.

Those promises, realized in our modern time, include abundant natural resources, great wealth and power among the nations. Fulfillment of those physical promises in all their fullness and detail is one of the keys to understanding the Bible, prophecy and God's limitless mercy with all nations and peoples. The apostle Paul understood this when he wrote concerning the physical descendants of Israel, "Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!" (Romans 11:12).

The proof of God's promises being fulfilled in these modern nations is a beacon of hope that the fullness of the spiritual blessings, salvation offered to all nations through Christ, will be fulfilled. Rejection of this vital key has led to confusion among all religions as to what God is doing today in this world. Our booklet The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy gives all the details of this story.

Now comes a book that helps give the much-needed corroboration from history. Andrew Roberts has written A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900, published this year in America by HarperCollins. This history borrows the title from the series written by Winston Churchill and published in 1956. Roberts continues on from where Churchill ended. Reading Roberts' work is essential to understanding just how these peoples rose to power and used it to shape the 20th century.

This book goes against the conventional wisdom of popular culture media and academia regarding the empire and power generated by Great Britain and America. Roberts makes no apology nor does he enter into hand-wringing guilt over the position these nations have attained.

Read this book to see another side to history and to see to what extent these nations have inherited the birthright. Read this book to really understand the role the English-speaking nations have had in bringing more personal freedom and economic prosperity to their people and those they either ruled or liberated, than any other nation or empire in history. Read this book to counter the soft mush that passes for history in today's school curricula.

Consider this example of how Roberts handles the dark side of their history: "A characteristic of the English-speaking peoples displayed both in South Africa and in the Philippines at the dawn of the twentieth century, and then fairly regularly ever since, was their tendency towards ruthlessness in warfare." He then refers to unfortunate incidents in wars involving both countries including the recent example of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

He concludes, "Even so, once the relevant authorities were apprised of the facts of the case they acted decisively, through courts-martial. No one in history has done more for the concept of human beings having certain inalienable rights than the English-speaking peoples, and it is often solely because of their belief in the rule of law that abuses ever come to light and are punished...[it] is not that the English-speaking peoples never commit crimes in wartime, but rather that their open societies and free press tend to ensure that these are punished while many other societies' crimes rarely are, or are even acknowledged as such" (p. 30).

Much can be said of the "special relationship" between America and Great Britain today. But we know this was not automatically created at the birth of America in 1776 and the years following. America's break from England took a number of years to overcome. First there was the skirmish called the War of 1812, during which British troops burned the White House in Washington. Once the two stopped fighting each other, America had to fight its own Civil War to determine its future as one united nation.

But by the turn of the 20th century the two could seriously work together to create an imperium unlike any other. It would be needed. Roberts defines four assaults upon the role defined for the two nations.

First was the Prussian militarism of Germany, which plunged Europe into the chaos of war in 1914. The goal of Kaiser Wilhelm was to dominate the continent under what he later described as "a United States of Europe under German leadership." Had this occurred, Britain's existence as an independent power would have ended. But prophecy did not ordain it so. America entered the conflict in 1917 and made the decisive difference.

The second assault was fascist aggression spearheaded by Hitler and Mussolini in World War II. Once again Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany's aggression until America's arsenal of democracy was mobilized. At the end of the war the European continent lay prostrate and Britain was an exhausted empire that was soon to be dismantled.

But the third assault rose from the ashes in the form of Soviet Communism. Russian forces did not retreat from their forward positions at the end of the war. Churchill described it as an "iron curtain" that had fallen over Eastern Europe, and it would not be lifted for 45 years. During this time America and the Soviet Union were locked in a cold war that involved proxy conflicts in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. It ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The fourth assault is Islamic terrorism and the war on terror. This assault has a defined emergence on Sept. 11, 2001, but its roots were growing years before. It continues today and perhaps will be the catalyst toward another crisis the Bible defines as a time of "Jacob's trouble" when the modern descendants of Jacob enter a period of testing and trial at the end of the age.

When this time comes, the period when the English-speaking nations dominate the world will be over. It will then be a different world ruled over by a revived system the Bible calls Babylon the Great. But that is another story.

Andrew Roberts has written a marvelous ode to the special relationship between two unique nations and their scattered brothers. The history covers a period when the world has moved from the age of horse and buggy to the space shuttle. It is the most fascinating period of human history, and it all was foretold in your Bible. Read this book as an affirmation of what God foretold to Abraham and thank Him for those blessings. WNP