Year: 2024

Diesel
Meeting of great minds: Rudolf Diesel (left) with Thomas Edison (seated) in Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory, with (from left) Ellen Rice, Edison engineer J.W. Lieb Jr. and Martha Diesel, 1912. (U.S. National Park Service, public domain)
Unanswered Questions: Churchill and Rudolf Diesel

Unanswered Questions: Churchill and Rudolf Diesel

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It is known that Rudolf Diesel boarded the “Dresden” that fatal October in 1913 intending to meet with the British about licensing his invention. By then Churchill and Fisher were well along on the conversion from coal to oil for capital ships, and WSC had secured an oil supply through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. How far Diesel developments had affected designs for submarines or Churchill’s “landship” (the tank) bears further investigation. 

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Second World
Pickering, Yorkshire, 31 March 1944: WSC inspects “Blenheim,” a Cromwell Mk IV tank of No. 2 Squadron, 2nd (Armoured Reconnaissance) Battalion, Welsh Guards. With him is Squadron Commander Major John Ogilvie Spencer, who was killed in Belgium on 9 September 1944. (Photo by Capt. Horton, War Office, public domain)
Questions on Books: The Second World War

Questions on Books: The Second World War

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Not all translations spanned the complete six volumes. The Turkish Edition contained only the first two volumes. Wendy Reves, wife of Churchill’s literary agent, Emery Reves, told me that the publishers refused to pay for the rest! The first Russian edition (1956-58) contained only the first three volumes, though Ronald Cohen also lists a later, complete Russian edition published in 1997-98. There were also eight translations of Churchill’s one-volume abridged edition, first published in 1959.

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Stapledon
WSC at Chartwell, 1930s. (HIllsdale College Press)
How Olaf Stapledon Inspired Churchill’s Vision

How Olaf Stapledon Inspired Churchill’s Vision

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Of Stapledon’s “Last and First Men” Churchill wrote: “A race of beings was evolved which had mastered nature. A state was created whose citizens lived as long as they chose, enjoyed pleasures and sympathies incomparably wider than our own, navigated the interplanetary spaces, could recall the panorama of the past and foresee the future.” But “without an equal growth of Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love, Science herself may destroy all that makes human life majestic and tolerable....”

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Young
Detail from the cover of Levenger’s “The Happy Warrior,” 2008.
Best Churchill Books for Young Readers

Best Churchill Books for Young Readers

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Fiona Reynoldson’s “Leading Lives: Churchill,” is targeted at the young (ages 8-15). Now a quarter century old, it is still the best “juvenile” ever published, anywhere, by anybody. The “Leading Lives” series mixes Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Arafat with Roosevelt, Kennedy and Gandhi. I know nothing about the others, but Reynoldson’s Churchill is a masterpiece. So much wisdom and fair understanding is attractively wedged into sixty-four pages.

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charter
The White House, 25 June 1954. L-R: Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, WSC, President Eisenhower, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. (Photo by Thomas O’Halloran, Library of Congress)
The Second Atlantic Charter? A Seventieth Anniversary

The Second Atlantic Charter? A Seventieth Anniversary

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“We will continue our support of the United Nations and of existing international organizations that have been established in the spirit of the Charter for common protection and security. We urge the establishment and maintenance of such associations of appropriate nations as will best, in their respective regions, preserve the peace and the independence of the peoples living there. When desired by the peoples of the affected countries, we are ready to render appropriate and feasible assistance to such associations.” Eisenhower & Churchill, 1954    

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ships
When it came to cruise ships, “Christina O” (and her equally classy Hackercraft tender) were more Churchill’s style. (Photo by George Onassis, Creative Commons)
Red Herrings (Not Churchill’s Words): Cruise Ships and Dogfights

Red Herrings (Not Churchill’s Words): Cruise Ships and Dogfights

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Neither the ships nor the dogfight quips are traceable to Churchill. "Red herrings" are everywhere, in digital and print media, with no attribution whatsoever. Coming soon from Hillsdale College Press, my new, expanded edition of "Churchill by Himself”: contains nearly 200 famous remarks which Churchill either never said or denied saying. Fastidious digital searches produce no evidence to authenticate them. (Sometimes it was another bloke.)

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Greeks
“Was there no ancestral spirit to conjure up before this unfortunate Prince, the downfall of his House, the ruin of his people—the bloody cellar of Ekaterinburg?” L-R: Olga, Maria, Nicholas II, Alexandra, Anastasia, Alexei, Tatiana at Livadia, Crimea, 1913. (Photo by the Levitsky Studio, public domain)
Russians and Greeks: “Falling Below the Level of Events”

Russians and Greeks: “Falling Below the Level of Events”

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Churchill to Grey: "I beseech you at this crisis not to make a mistake in falling below the level of events. Half-hearted measures will ruin all, and a million men will die through the prolongation of the war. You must be bold and violent. You have a right to be. Our fleet is forcing the Dardanelles. No armies can reach Constantinople but those which we invite, yet we seek nothing here but the victory of the common cause." Grey and the Foreign Office "felt as we did. They did all in their power. It registers a terrible moment in the long struggle to save Russia from her foes and from herself.”

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statue
(Photo by Tim Buss, Creative Commons)
Interview: Some Thoughts on Churchill’s London Statue

Interview: Some Thoughts on Churchill’s London Statue

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The statue dilemma: All those statues on Parliament Square—not just Churchill's—are of people with human faults. During the craze to tear down statues a few years ago, French President Macron boldly announced that no French statues would go. They are part of France's heritage, he said, for good or ill. That was very courageous of him. Statues tell a nation's story. If you object to one, erect one to balance it. There is no virtue in hiding from history.

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jargon
“Let us not shrink from using the short, expressive phrases”: Campaigning at Uxbridge, Middlesex, 27 June 1945. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Churchill on Jargon: “Let Us Have an End to This Grimace”

Churchill on Jargon: “Let Us Have an End to This Grimace”

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Churchill said, “Short words are best, and the old words, when short, are best of all.” How would that peerless practitioner of English, would react to the kind of language around us today? We can imagine what he would think about substituting fashionable jargon like “challenges” for “handicaps” or “issues” for “difficulties.” What would he make of that stand-by cliché “reaching out”? Oh dear....

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Pamela
“The Life of the Party,” Christopher Ogden’s entertaining biography, is strongly recommended.
Pamela Beryl Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman 1920-1997

Pamela Beryl Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman 1920-1997

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Pamela Harriman was a noble spirit devoted to friends, family and both her countries. Not many people could have journeyed so successfully and far She was grace personified, at home equally in Churchill’s air raid shelter or the Élysée Palace. President Chirac was saddened by her death: “To say that she was an exceptional representative of the U.S. does not do justice to her achievement. She lent to our longstanding alliance the radiant strength of her personality. She was elegance itself...a peerless diplomat.” That old Francophile, her father-in-law, would have smiled.

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RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks


Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
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