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Books
1921: A Watershed Year, Brilliantly Recounted by David Stafford
18
Feb
2020
By WILLIAM J. SHEPHERD
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.
Tags:
Balfour Declartion,
Cairo Conference,
Chaim Weizmann,
Clare Sheridan,
Clementine Churchill,
David Lloyd George,
David Stafford,
Eddie Marsh,
Ernest Cassel,
F.E. Smith,
Gertrude Bell,
Herbert Lionel Vane-Tempest,
Iraq,
Irish Treaty,
Jordan,
King Faisal,
Lady Randolph Churchill,
Marigold Churchill,
Max Beaverbrook,
Mesopotamia,
Palestine,
Singapore,
T.E. Lawrence,
Two-Power Standard,
Washington Naval Treaty,
Winston S. Churchill,
“A Few Words of My Own”: Thoughts on Completing the Official Biography
30
Dec
2019
By SIR MARTIN GILBERT
Sir Martin’s reflections after finishing the final narrative volume are reprised as Hillsdale completes the final document volume in the Great Biography.
Leo McKinstry on Churchill and Attlee: A Primer on Political Collegiality
29
Nov
2019
2
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
McKinstry is thorough and scrupulously fair. Unlike too many historians today, he goes in with no axes to grind. He simply tells the story, backed by a voluminous bibliography, extensive research and private correspondence. In scope and balance, the book reminds us of Arthur Herman’s Gandhi and Churchill—another elegant account of two contentious figures. Like Herman, McKinstry captures Churchill’s generosity of spirit, and his rival’s greatness of soul.
Marlborough: In it Churchill “Laid the Basis of His Own Greatness”
22
Nov
2019
2
By ANDREW ROBERTS
Churchill told the story of his ancestor in beautiful Augustan Age prose, but also discovered new sources and corrected earlier historians’ errors. Mastering foreign language documents, he produced an outstanding work of history as well as literature, one that appealed to an academic as well as to a popular audience. All this came from someone whose father had said: “He has little [claim] to cleverness, to knowledge or any capacity for settled work.”
Great Contemporaries: Emery Reves, Sales Dept. for the Production Chief
20
Nov
2019
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
It is a tribute to this book, and those who saw it into print, that a memory of two unforgettable spirits is so eloquently presented.
Bouverie’s Chamberlain: “A Mind Sequestered in Its Own Delusions”
31
Oct
2019
By MICHAEL McMENAMIN
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.”
The Churchill Documents vol. 22, “Leader of the Opposition,” 1945-1951
25
Oct
2019
By ANDREW ROBERTS
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 on Churchill, War and War’s Aftermath
02
Oct
2019
By BRADLEY TOLPPANEN
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.
A Needed Tribute to Churchill’s Most Devoted Staff, by Cita Stelzer
03
Sep
2019
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
"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.
The Brendon Bestiary: Churchill’s Animals as Friends and Analogies
03
Sep
2019
1
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
This is just a representative fraction of Piers Brendon’s comprehensive book. He avoids repeating material in several previous accounts, and goes much deeper into the subject. Most of the anecdotes have not appeared previously and are thus quite valuable. Anyone interested in the personal side of the great man owes it to themselves to buy a copy.
British Politics, Power, and the Road to WW2, by Robert Crowcroft
28
Aug
2019
By PAUL ADDISON
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.
Hamilton’s Churchill: An Obsessive Who Worsened a President’s Illness
30
Jul
2019
By WARREN F. KIMBALL
Why would Hamilton raise the inconsequential to the significant? With admirers like this, Churchill’s memory needs no enemies.