Andrew Roberts

The Splendid and the Vile is the story of the London Blitz, from the moment that Winston Churchill became prime minister on 10 May 1940, until the Luftwaffe raid that destroyed the parts of the House of Commons exactly one year later, coincidentally on the same night that Rudolf Hess flew to Scotland.

These are just a few of the classical authors Churchill read in his self-education as a young man. They form an adjunct to the more recent and direct inspirations, the figures of more recent centuries.

It was not a broadcast appeal to the nation. Nothing so vague as that for Winston S. Churchill. It was his order to the Admiralty on 20 May 1940. The Admiralty then formed the Small Vessels Pool, in which private owners registered their craft for the mission and were given routes and charts.

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.”

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.

The earliest cigarette cards trace their origins to the Crimean War of 1853-56, when smoking rose to the heights of popularity. Originally, cards were plain stiffeners in the cigarette packs. With advances in printing and lithography, it did not take long for the tobacco companies to recognize the marketing potential of illustrated cards.

Von Heyking offers an interesting scholarly work that places Churchill’s many political friendships within a philosophical grounding.

The Churchill Project is honored to be in the van of defenders of the truth, and Sir Winston’s good name. We welcome the growing number of allies.

In the best biography since 1991, Roberts's witty, fluent, flowing prose captures the adventure, energy, and incessant movement that Churchill produced.

Nora Henty, last survivor from Churchill’s wartime staff, had vivid memories of those “dark days and darker nights” when Britain stood alone.

Sharing Churchill’s appreciation of the wisdom of Edmund Burke, Andrew Roberts compares the two great figures, and wonders what they’d make of Brexit.

Listen to and read Dr. Arnn's speech about Winston Churchill during a recent Hillsdale College National Leadership seminar on Principles and Policy.