Articles

For non-Russian-reading researchers, this book is indispensable. For aficionados of the history of the Second World War, it is a thought-provoking delight.

Our grief and loss are deeply felt. Paul was a gentleman scholar: a man of strong convictions, who never let them interfere with his search for truth. Hagiography is fatal. Honesty matters. Those were his cardinal precepts. Above all, he left a corpus of excellence from which young people will always learn things worth knowing. His work abides, and as Churchill said, a man never dies as long as he is remembered. All who love history will forever remember Paul Addison.

“Low is the greatest of our modern cartoonists,” wrote Winston Churchill in his delightful essay “Cartoons and Cartoonists.” He praised “the vividness of his political conceptions,” and declared Low a singular artist: “He possesses what few cartoonists have—a grand technique of draughtsmanship. Low is a master of black and white. He is the Charlie Chaplin of caricature, and tragedy and comedy are the same to him.”

Hillsdale was founded thirty years before Churchill’s birth. Its mission was to spread “sound learning” so as to help preserve “the blessings of civil and religious liberty” and “intelligent piety,” sentiments we believe were shared and typified by Churchill’s life’s work.

A close Anglo-American partnership was a guiding principle in Churchill’s thinking about international relations. The creation of such a partnership was a central aspect of his long political career. While still a young backbench Member of Parliament, he said, “it ought to be the main end of English statecraft over a long period of years to cultivate good relations with the United States.” In 1918 he declared it his hope that the two countries would “act permanently together.”

Stafford’s description of this critical year is masterful. In 1921 the former “bold, bad man” of British national life rose above his reputation as a war-mongering opportunist. The picture is of a reflective and vulnerable man of character, strengthened by every reverse—a man of vision and, to a few observers, “a prime minister in the making.” Really good books about Churchill are scarce these days, and deserve full appreciation. This one belongs on any list of the top twenty specialized studies.

We all benefit from Hillsdale’s twenty-three volumes of The Churchill Documents, Robert Rhodes James’s Complete Speeches and the 332 Churchill articles in the Collected Essays. Vital as these contributions are, they do not capture everything Churchill wrote or said. There is far more. The task I set myself, all those years ago, was to find everything else, too. - Ronald Cohen

Churchill loved war. His spirit rose when it came. He fought on battlefields with a mixture of dash and calm courage. He directed wars in cabinet rooms with the moral courage and unflinching nerve that yields the best decisions. But Churchill loved something else better than he loved war. He loved peace. He loved freedom. He loved governments that protected the rights of their people and operated only with their consent.

Sir Martin’s reflections after finishing the final narrative volume are reprised as Hillsdale completes the final document volume in the Great Biography.

Christmas, 1941: “By our sacrifice…these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance…. And so, in God’s mercy, a happy Christmas to you all.”

Churchill offers thoughtful ideas on when representative government may be supplemented by a national vote. Above all, he thought the referendum must be rare. Only eleven times in his long career was there a call for a referendum. Only six times did he support it.

Christmas at Chartwell: “No matter how humble the gift, he accepted with surprise and pleasure. ‘For me?’ he'd ask, his eyes lighting up. ‘How very kind!’”