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Books
Oliver Popplewell on Munich, with Some Omissions
23
May
2023
1
By Williamson Murray
Popplewell explains Czechoslovakia’s great problem: the intermixing of nationalities during the old Hapsburg Empire. The collapse of the ramshackle Empire in 1918 caused the Versailles Peace Conference to reorganize an area where Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Poles, Germans, Jews, and Romani were intermixed. The difficulty for Czechoslovakia was that Sudeten Germans were settled heavily in the mountainous areas surrounding Bohemia and Moravia.
Kishan Rana on Churchill and India: A Misunderstood Relationship
15
May
2023
2
By ANDREAS KOUREAS
The most common misconceptions about Churchill and India are no better misrepresented than by former Indian Ambassador Rana. Ladled on wholesale are false accusations of genocide, imperial hatred and invented conspiracies. The ridiculous price for so short a book may do more than anything to prevent people from reading it. Which, given the contents, may not altogether be a bad thing.
Keen Historical Insights by Jock, the Intelligent Cat
11
May
2023
3
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Larry Kryske has provided Jock the cat with a translator and a publisher, offering a charming insight into Churchill’s old age. He asks you only to suspend disbelief and accept that cats, after all, are people too. Notably, Jock never refers to WSC as “my master,” but rather as “my human.” Theirs was a partnership of equals: a “Grand Alliance.” There is solid history here too, as it can be delivered by an author steeped in knowledge.
Cheers, Mr. Liddle: Building a Better Scottish Churchill
25
Apr
2023
By WILLIAM JOHN SHEPHERD
Andrew Liddle believes today’s Scotland ignores Churchill in part because the hero of 1940 eclipses the memory of his earlier Liberal phase. Also, Churchill is a victim of the constitutional debate that sees him as representing the union with England now resisted by some Scots. Yet Churchill supported Scottish devolution long before it became politically popular.
Bourke Cockran: “Becoming Churchill” Becomes Better
10
Apr
2023
By GREGORY BELL SMITH
“I have never seen his like, or in some respects his equal. With his enormous head, gleaming eyes and flexible countenance, he looked uncommonly like the portraits of Charles James Fox. It was not my fortune to hear any of his orations, but his conversation, in point, in pith, in rotundity, in antithesis, and in comprehension, exceeded anything I have ever heard.” —Winston Churchill on Bourke Cockran
Meltzer & Mensch: The Long Shelf Life of Russian Disinformation
31
Mar
2023
By MICHAEL MCMENAMIN
The neglect of occupied Persia by serious WW2 scholars “has permitted certain conflated, sensational parachutists and Nazi ‘black ops’ to achieve folkloric stature.... The archival records say unequivocally that Operation Long Jump was never seriously conceived, never planned, and never executed.” Meltzer and Mensch know this. But thanks to them, “Russian disinformation” continues to have a very long shelf life.
Farrell: Earle Delivered Unwelcome News, and Paid the Price
24
Mar
2023
1
By WARREN F. KIMBALL
We cannot understand wartime diplomacy without examining the goals and thought processes of the leaders involved. Was the goal in Europe to defeat Nazi Germany or to prevent Russia from subjugating Poland and half the continent? Amid the chaos and commitments of world war, Roosevelt and Churchill opted for peace and hope, not another war.
A New Account of Churchill Remaking the Mideast by Brad Faught
13
Mar
2023
By WILLIAM JOHN SHEPHERD
Brad Faught has given us an expertly researched and thoughtfully argued examination of one of the seminal diplomatic events of the 20th century. He explains why British officials like Curzon and Allenby opposed a Jewish homeland within the Mandate of Palestine. Allenby, aided by Lawrence, was the general who had conquered the Ottoman provinces in the First World War.
Alan Saltman Looks at Churchill’s Decision to Fight On—Again
09
Mar
2023
1
By William John Shepherd
Once Churchill became prime minister, ignominious vassalage à la Vichy France was never a serious possibility. But Saltman's psychological profile of why Churchill fought on omits a crucial dimension: Churchill’s belief in constitutional democracy. That didn’t come from his upbringing or the military, but from his wide reading of the classic philosophers, and broad understanding of representative government.
“Trumpets from the Steep”: Churchill’s Second World War Memoirs
24
Feb
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Churchill had a right to make his case. He had attacked an allied fleet, fired generals, lost battleships, stalled on launching fronts, argued with Roosevelt and Stalin and carpet bombed Germany. He felt the need to defend his actions, knowing critics would gladly seize on and emphasize his mistakes.
Sander and Langer Take us Out for Drinks
20
Feb
2023
By DAVE TURRELL
"If you are going to use a famous name to improve the selling potential of your book, at least some basic research to get that famous name correct. Hint: in this case, it’s not “Winston Lawrence Spencer Churchill” (pages 5, 66, 128). This is inaccuracy on an industrial scale. We are told in the acknowledgments section: “Researching and writing any book is hard; Researching and writing a book while much of the known world is shut down in a pandemic required great creativity and imagination.” We noticed.
The Brief, Sparkling Life of the Collected Essays
13
Feb
2023
1
By RICHARD M LANGWORTH
“Churchill was never a dull man, was almost incapable of writing or speaking a dull sentence, and his essays were nearly always imaginative. As a biographical record these essays are therefore unique; as literary yardsticks they are of great interest; and as historical and political footnotes they are indispensable to an understanding of Churchill and his place in the history of his times.” —Michael Wolff