2019

The main concern for Pilecki at Auschwitz was the fate of Poles, but in describing that of the Jews he asked a stark question: “Were we all people”?

The Biography “is true, insofar as diligence and research can establish truth…. All an author can offer is a fragment of reality—that, and the hope that it will endure.” —William Manchester

Never Flinch, Never Weary chronicles a time when mankind stood “uncertainly poised between world catastrophe and a golden age.”

Clews paints a loyal but frustrated Churchill who later defined the rule of the Phoney War: “Don’t be unkind to the enemy; you will only make him angry.”

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.

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

Bouverie’s dismissal of the 1938 plot as “probably correctly” a fantasy is quite inexplicable. He lists Meehan’s book in his bibliography along with the memoirs of Erich Kordt, who wrote that swallowing Hitler’s terms at Munich “prevented the coup d’état in Berlin.” Even Henderson, the pro-Chamberlain British ambassador to Germany, thought the Hitler plot genuine. On 6 October, a week after Munich, Henderson wrote Halifax: “By keeping the peace, we have saved Hitler and his regime.”

Volume 22 of the Churchill Documents contains Churchill's documentary record from the 1945 election and his return to the premiership in October 1951. It is a curiously under-examined part of Churchill’s career. Yet it encompassed the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan and her subsequent surrender, his Iron Curtain speech in Missouri, the partition of India and the creation of Israel, the Berlin airlift, and the founding of NATO and the European movement. Upon all of these, Churchill took important stances.

McKercher and Capet have provided a collection of substantive and challenging essays. Their book offers many useful observations that will stimulate further historical discussion and scholarship.

"Working with Winston: The Unsung Women," by Cita Stelzer, shows the importance Churchill attached to everything, from routine domestic matters to the terror of imminent extinction. This book is essential to understand the rounded picture.

Both Churchill and Chamberlain understood that Nazi Germany was a time bomb. But whereas Chamberlain imagined that it could be defused by diplomacy, Churchill believed that it could only be defused by force, or the threat of force. When the diplomacy of appeasement failed Chamberlain was compelled to accept—albeit with the profound reluctance of a man who loathed war—that no other response was possible. In the final analysis the British Empire, which was already in decline, had to be sacrificed so that Britain itself could live.

Why would Hamilton raise the inconsequential to the significant? With admirers like this, Churchill’s memory needs no enemies.