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Winston S. Churchill
The Churchill Project - Hillsdale College > Winston S. Churchill
Churchill’s Novels in Sterner Days: More than Mere Escape
17
Jul
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Churchill was motivated by H.G. Wells’s views of science in war: “The irresistible Juggernaut, driving through towns and villages as through a field of standing corn—a type which Armageddon itself could not achieve....” That was an accurate description of the Blitzkrieg that swept over France in May 1940, though WSC himself had his reasons to speak less alarmingly. He settled for a “remarkable combination of air bombing and heavily armoured tanks.” He was, after all, about to admonish Britons: “Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour.”
Churchill’s Descriptive Power: The River War and Herbert Kitchener
13
Jul
2023
By ALAN STRAUS-SCHOM
Churchill deftly describes Herbert Kitchener, Sirdar of the Anglo-Egyptian Army, with whom he would have more encounters in a greater war to come. No detail escapes his gaze. Kitchener inspected everything from machine shops to transport to cooking arrangements, even verifying the quality of grain, clothing, and food. Churchill at this time sees Kitchener as “ungracious”: cold and aloof, incapable of any human warmth. Later, in the First World War, he was more magnanimous.
Pure Gold: Martin Gilbert’s “In Search of Churchill”
10
Jul
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
More than any of his nearly 90 works, "In Search of Churchill" is deeply personal. It is Sir Martin’s answer to all those critics over the years who accused him of being uncritical about a figure some have spent years denouncing. It is also, therefore, a self-defense manual for friends of Churchill: a smorgasbord of historical karate-chops.
“The Cambridge Companion to Winston Churchill”: a Review
06
Jul
2023
By ANDREW ROBERTS
Academics revel in pointing out their subjects’ feet of clay, but all too often pay too little attention to the marble in the rest of the statue. This is a relatively new phenomenon. The words that free peoples employ in their defence of the liberty to express contested ideas will largely be those of Sir Winston Churchill: the subject—but sadly not the hero—of this book.
Michael Collins: “Tell Winston we could never have done anything without him”
29
Jun
2023
By MICHAEL McMENAMIN
The “common understanding” between Churchill and Collins was the Irish Free State as a free, self-governing Dominion, the same as Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Against them were arrayed the Conservative Party “die-hards,” Sir Henry Wilson and Andrew Bonar Law, and the anti-Treaty IRA hard-liners. Eamon de Valera exhorted the latter to wade through “the blood of some of the members of the Government.”
“Winston Churchill & The Queen,” by Oliver Williams
26
Jun
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Much passed between The Queen and her first prime minister in their years of close association. But none of this is in the book, and Churchill’s quoted words are few. Instead, we get a hodgepodge of paraphrase, opinion, false trails, red herrings and off-the-wall pronouncements which sidetrack the story and will throw off the unwary.
The White House, December 1941: Solidifying the Special Relationship
23
Jun
2023
By CITA STELZER
“The President was eager that American forces be sent into battle as soon as they were prepared. A landing in North Africa, Operation Torch, was agreed. And so the Grand Alliance began. It seems to me that these day-long meetings—and the accompanying lunches and dinners—were immensely important. They bonded the two new allies. And they set up a structure that would prosecute the war to its successful conclusion.”
Peden: A Fresh Look at Churchill, Chamberlain and the 1930s
19
Jun
2023
By CHRISTOPHER M. BELL
Chamberlain failed because he did not understand Hitler. He believed Hitler could be trusted, and had only modest and reasonable territorial ambitions. Once it became clear that Hitler could not be trusted and was pursuing a vast expansionist agenda, Chamberlain’s views on alliances, rearmament and deterrence began to align more closely with Churchill’s.
Boris Resigns, Churchill Reminds: Constitutional Duty of Representatives
15
Jun
2023
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
“The first duty of a Member of Parliament is to do what he thinks in his faithful and disinterested judgment is right and necessary for the honour and safety of Great Britain. His second duty is to his constituents.... It is only in the third place that his duty to the party organization or programme takes rank.” —WSC, 1955
Testimony to History: Churchill’s Chartwell Visitors Book
12
Jun
2023
By FRED GLUECKSTEIN
Using the digital Visitors Book, in the Chartwell Exhibition Room, we can view signatures and profiles of all the people who visited over forty of the most historic and challenging years of the 20th century. This great work of many hands provides viewers with a unique, highly specialized opportunity to learn more about the private lives of Winston and Clementine Churchill and their family.
Cancellation Attempts, 1939: Kitty Atholl, Winston Churchill
05
Jun
2023
2
By RICHARD COHEN
Even in her time a politician could be “cancelled” for saying things deemed unfashionable by the prevailing orthodoxy. Back then the orthodoxy was the Munich agreement. Her criticisms of it cost the Duchess of Atholl her party and her seat in Parliament. She went down fighting, but never wavered in her causes: human rights and Churchill’s campaign against Appeasement.
Taylor Downing Adds a New Dimension to the Monumental Churchill Canon
30
May
2023
By WILLIAM J. SHEPHERD
Downing does a great job in presenting the story in a near-real time format. This enables the reader to have a better understanding of the impact of intertwining events. His extensive use of Mass-Observation, a compilation of surveys and observations on the concerns of Britons, is illuminating in light of the later hindsight that sometimes approaches dogma. It genuinely adds a new dimension to the monumental Churchill canon.