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Remembrances: A Young Irishman at Sir Winston’s Funeral
05
Oct
2023
1
By CHARLES LYSAGHT
“Unlike many Irish children of my generation, I was brought up to admire Winston Churchill. My father, although nationalist enough, always uttered his name with reverence. He believed that he had saved us as well as the British from the evil Hitler. Churchill’s defiant orations, received at home in those perilous years on our crackling Telefunken wireless, had made a deep impression.”
Churchill as a Character from the Works of Lewis Carroll
21
Sep
2023
By GARY L. STILES
Churchill was represented as a character from Lewis Carroll eight times: a wide range, from the innocent Alice to the bizarre Mad Hatter to the supercilious Caterpillar. Whatever their politics, the cartoons were devoid of viciousness, suggesting the affection in which he was held, often by those who utter disagreed with him. They are artefacts of a vanished political age.
Churchill and the Rhineland: “They Had Only to Act to Win”
14
Sep
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
It is the belief of many thoughtful historians that Churchill said and did nothing about the Rhineland. His actions are more complex than that. He did give mixed signals, but he also proposed solutions. When France refused action, he favored collective action. His public declarations were hardly a clarion call. But we must bear in mind also that he was not in office. The Rhineland marked Churchill’s final disillusionment over the League of Nations and impelled his efforts to secure Collective Security. The problem was that the willing were few—and demonstrably unwilling to cooperate.
Gift Copies of Churchill’s “Marlborough: His Life and Times”
13
Sep
2023
1
By MICHAEL RICHARDS
Best buy for gift giving is the four-volume 1991 Folio Society edition, handsomely bound and boxed in maroon buckram. A plus for this edition is a special introduction by Maurice Ashley. Churchill’s literary assistant in the 1930s, Ashley knew as much about the writing as anyone. This is the most luxurious production of an individual set since the signed limited edition of the 1930s. It is regularly available, and makes a gift anyone would be proud to receive.
Churchill and the Presidents: Harry S. Truman (2): Postwar Shadows
04
Sep
2023
By FRED GLUECKSTEIN
“Your great country and mine are founded on the fact that the people have the right to express themselves on their leaders, no matter what the crisis.... We are in the midst of grave and trying times. You can look with satisfaction upon your great contribution to the overthrow of Nazism & Fascism in the world. ‘Communism’ so called, is our next great problem. I hope we can solve it without the 'blood and tears' the other two cost. May God bless and protect you.” — Harry Truman to WSC, July 1948.
Vanishing National Anthems: Do We Still Know the Words?
31
Aug
2023
1
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
“Even the single-stanza Star-Spangled Banner is under threat from alternate anthems. One proposed replacement is that Chamber of Commerce production America the Beautiful—widely admired because everyone can sing it. Still, if we can put up with desecrations of the anthem by pop singers at Super Bowls, the rest of us can afford to miss the high notes in ‘rockets’ red glare...’”
Winston Churchill Retells the World’s Great Stories, Part 3
21
Aug
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Adam Bede’s fictional county of Loamshire is, like Churchill’s favored Kent, “an early paradise...with its rich and rewarding farmlands, its flowery gardens, fruitful orchards and spotless dairies, its people secure and contented in their own traditions.” This was the England he would invoke so effectively a few years on, when the terror of imminent extinction flickered. Perhaps too, in the sorry march to Munich in 1938, he would ponder George Eliot’s wise maxim: “Consequences are determined not by excuses but by actions.”
Great Contemporaries: Harry S. Truman (1): Prelude to Potsdam
17
Aug
2023
By FRED GLUECKSTEIN
Churchill on Truman: “He takes no notice of delicate ground, he just plants his foot down firmly upon it.” Truman on Churchill: “I am sure we can get along if he doesn’t try to give me too much soft soap. You know soft soap is made of ash hopper lye and it burns to beat hell when it gets into the eyes.”
Winston Churchill Retells the World’s Great Stories, Part 2
11
Aug
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Churchill was busy in 1933, and Eddie Marsh wrote large tracts of the Great Stories. Yet Churchill signed off on every word and edited freely. His aim was not “great stories summarised, but great stories retold. It is essential to select the salient features of the tale and make them live in all their fullness.” These were old tales, but Churchill’s view was balanced: “Even in the 20th century, there have been some well-known writers, but I think that modesty must prevent me from pursuing that line of thought to its legitimate and inevitable conclusion.”
Winston Churchill Retells the World’s Great Stories, Part 1
03
Aug
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
“[W]e are not writing great stories summarised, but great stories retold,” Churchill wrote Eddie Marsh. “It is essential to select the salient features of the tale and make them live in all their fullness, leaving the rest in darkness. Both Dickens and Dumas mixed up a lot of rot and padding in their writing for feuilleton purposes, all of which goes overboard through my lee scuppers.... I know A Tale of Two Cities well, though I suppose I shall have to re-read it. It certainly lends itself to dramatic pemmicanisation.”
Reporting Churchills: Henry Lucy on Winston and Lord Randolph
31
Jul
2023
By DAVE TURRELL
Winston “was evidently fully supplied with notes,” Lucy wrote, “but he did not use his manuscript for the purpose of reading a single sentence...a debater who will have to be reckoned with whatever Government is in office. Probably a ministry composed of his own political friends have most to apprehend.” The last sentence is telling. It was obvious that Winston was his father’s son—a political disrupter by nature.
A Remembrance of Lady Williams of Elvel, 1929-2023
24
Jul
2023
By CITA STELZER
“As her prominent role in the life of Churchill became better known, Lady William began to receive speaking invitations. She was reluctant, but gave it a try. Her wealth of experience added to historians’ views—not only of the prime minister but also as a person with family and all the other problems, joys and sorrows. I like to think that the influence of this kind and intelligent woman extends across those years—years in which she helped Churchill serve his country and, indeed, the world.”