Articles

The “book to go with the film” by Andrew McCarten falls short of the movie. It supposes Churchill was an ordinary man. In the movie, he is anything but.

After more than our share of historical clangers recently, Churchill admirers can welcome all this movie offers. Unlike any recent production, it genuinely honors the heroic memory. And that’s a special thing these days. Give Gary Oldman, the cast and producers a tip of the hat.

The allegations that Winston Churchill was unfaithful while on holiday in the South of France in the mid-1930s have been knocking around for eighty years, with nothing substantial to back them up, and, having been researching a biography of Churchill for the past four years, I do not believe it.

In his review of "Churchill Warrior," Dr. Sterling touches on how Brian Lavery balances conciseness with a gripping narrative.

Michael McMenamin praises Shakespeare's "Six Minutes In May" for its coherent, fascinating account of Churchill's rise to power in conjunction with Hitler's aggression in the West.

At Hillsdale College we have been thinking about the greatest of all wars, the Second World War. If we study that war and the actions of its profoundest statesman, we can find some lessons to guide us today.

In another age when even his marriage is questioned by the ignorant, Lady Diana’s words are worth remembering. Few who knew Clementine and Winston spoke better of it. Little was said about it in their time, she writes,“because it was too happy to be heard of.” Her essay corrected that lapse. It first appeared after Sir Winston’s death in The Atlantic. Her son, Lord Norwich, had not seen it and was pleased at the discovery. I have inserted her charming picture of a Chartwell weekend from her first volume of memoirs.

Jacky Fisher was not finished. He was restless, an agitator. His dismay over the conduct of the naval war brought him closer to Churchill, and soon the two were on favourable terms, locked in a curious destiny. The press baron George Riddell wrote: “Fisher, the Duchess, and Winston are now bosom friends.”

Churchill began with an impassioned indictment of Admiralty management and the government. Carefully, precisely, he cited shipbuilding delays, the German threat to Britain’s maritime ascendancy, the lack of drive and conviction. Change was demanded. He wound up with one of the most remarkable reversals of his political career.

The Swedish Academy was right in recognizing a long and brilliant literary career that had begun in 1895. Despite Churchill’s disappointment in not winning the Nobel Peace Prize, he thanked them humbly. “I hope you have not been biased in any way in your judgment of my literary qualities,” he told Ambassador Hägglöf. “But at any rate I am very proud indeed to receive an honor which is international. I have received several which are national, but this is the first time that I have received one which is international in its character.”8 At Ten Downing Street he told reporters: “I think it a very great honor to receive from the Swedish Academy of Literature this distinction gained among all the other writers of the world.”

This eclectic photo documentary is hardly essential to the Churchill library, but may appeal through its unique visual presentation of fairly obscure subjects.

The name of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher, commonly known as “Jacky,” was on the lips of everyone who cared about the Royal Navy. Fisher’s resignation in May 1915, at a critical stage of the Dardanelles campaign, had led to Churchill’s removal as First Lord of the Admiralty. That post constituted the political head of naval administration, with a prominent position in Cabinet. It offered unbounded influence in all aspects of war direction. Fisher had been at that time First Sea Lord, the senior naval officer. Churchill brought the famous Admiral out of retirement in October 1914 to put zeal and drive into naval affairs. Fisher arrived at a time of misadventure.