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“The Social Dilemma” and Churchill’s “Mass Effects in Modern Life”
04
Feb
2021
1
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
An alarming documentary on “The Social Dilemma” strikes parallels with Churchill’s similar warnings about technological revolution.
Why Calgary Needs a Statue of Sir Winston Churchill
03
Feb
2021
By MARK MILKE
The Calgary Churchill statue will celebrate Sir Winston’s prescience in peace, resolution in war, and lifetime quest for liberty and human rights.
A Doctor’s Tale: Lord Moran and Churchill’s Medical History
24
Jan
2021
By JOHN H. MATHER, MD
How accurate were Churchill’s doctor’s diaries? Lord Moran was a skillful and devoted physician, less fastidious as a recorder of events.
Great Contemporaries: Eamon de Valera and a Long, Fraught Relationship
22
Jan
2021
By CHARLES LYSAGHT
Winston Churchill was not a man to bear grudges, and firmly admired the Irish. Yet he was strangely oblivious to the widespread, albeit not universal, hostility still felt towards him in nationalist Ireland. In 1953 he faced a libel action in Ireland arising out of his memoirs. It was brought by Eric Dorman-Smith, an Irish-born general whom he had dismissed during the Desert War. He expressed doubt that “an Irish jury would necessarily be unfair or that they would be prejudiced against me.” His legal advisers knew better. They made sure the case was settled before it got to be heard before a jury in Dublin. When Churchill died in 1965, de Valera, now President of Ireland, lauded him as a great Englishman. He could not omit to add the rider that Churchill had been a “dangerous enemy” of the Irish people.
Great Contemporaries: Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman
05
Jan
2021
3
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Pamela Harriman, said Jacques Chirac, was “elegance itself...a peerless diplomat.” That old Francophile, her father-in-law, would have smiled.
Tags:
Averell Harriman,
Caspar Weinberger,
David Margesson,
Everard Digby,
Gunpowder Plot,
Jacques Chirac,
Jesse Helms. Paul H. Robinson Jr.,
John Churchill,
Legion d’Honneur,
Leland Hayward,
Minterne Magna,
Norman Ornstein,
Pamela Harriman,
Richard Holbrooke,
Richard M. Langworth,
Thomas Maier,
Winston Churchill (grandson),
Winston S. Churchill,
Great Contemporaries: Alan Brooke, the Thoroughbred Professional
19
Dec
2020
1
By CHRISTOPHER C. HARMON
Still visible above swirls of pettiness, heroes remain: Brooke, the great general; above him, looming ever larger, the man who saved liberty.
Paul Courtenay 1934-2020: No Better Definition of a Pro
13
Dec
2020
2
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Paul Courtenay was indispensable, a Churchill encyclopedia. But he'd never say "I told you so." Even if he HAD told us so.
Hitler’s “Tet Offensive”: Churchill and the Austrian Anschluss, 1938
05
Nov
2020
1
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Breathless media admiration of Hitler’s Anschluss obscured German military deficiencies that might have mattered if the democracies had stood firm.
Tags:
Adolf Hitler,
Alexander Lassner,
Anschluss,
Case Otto,
Erich Raeder,
Geoffrey Dawson,
Hapsburg Empire,
Hearst press,
Hermann Goering,
Joachim von Ribbentrop,
Kurt von Schuschnigg,
League of Nations,
Little Entente,
Neville Chamberlain,
Richard M. Langworth,
Unity Mitford,
Versailles Treaty,
Werner von Blomberg,
Werner von Fritsch,
Winston S. Churchill,
“Shall We All Commit Suicide?”: Churchill’s Scientific Imagination – Part 2
31
Oct
2020
By PAUL K. ALKON
Churchill’s affinity for scientific techniques, themes and writers significantly proclaims his openness toward the future—and its perils.
“Shall We All Commit Suicide?”: Churchill’s Scientific Imagination – Part 1
24
Oct
2020
By PAUL K. ALKON
Churchill’s imagination in engaging with science and its potential consequences enabled him to confront vast change between the Victorian and Atomic eras.
Great Contemporaries: Orde Wingate – “A Man of the Highest Quality”
08
Oct
2020
By BRADLEY P. TOLPPANEN
Wingate “lives on in the long-range penetration groups, and all these intricate and daring air and military operations.” —WSC
Tags:
Abyssinia,
Alan Brooke,
American Air Commandos,
Archibald Wavell,
Bradley P. Tolppanen,
Burma Campaign,
Chaim Weismann,
Chindits,
David Ben-Gurion,
East African Campaign,
Gideon Force,
Haile Selassie,
James Wolfe,
Joseph Stillwell,
Louis Mountbatten,
Moshe Dayan,
Palestine,
Quebec Conference,
Reginald Wingate,
Special Night Squads,
T.E. Lawrence,
Winston S. Churchill,
History as Prologue: Winston Churchill and the Historian as Statesman
17
Sep
2020
By JOSIAH LEINBACH
Churchill looked back on the past with reverence and with regularity—thankfully so, for we owe him the same debt we owe to our history: gratitude.
Tags:
David Lindsay Keir,
edmund burke,
Edward Gibbon,
George Santayana,
Harrow,
Henry Hallam,
J.H. Plumb,
Joseph Addison,
Josiah Leinbach,
Lady Randolph Churchill,
Lord Randolph Churchill,
Neville Chamberlain,
Sandhurst,
Thomas Babington Macaulay,
Tribe of Issachar,
Two-Power Standard,
William Shakespeare,
Winston S. Churchill,