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A “Paintatous” Masterpiece: Paul Rafferty on Churchill’s Riviera Art

A “Paintatous” Masterpiece: Paul Rafferty on Churchill’s Riviera Art

Paul Raf­fer­ty, Win­ston Churchill: Paint­ing on the French Riv­iera. Lon­don: Uni­corn Pub­lish­ing, 2020, 208 pages. $50. Excerpt­ed from a review for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. To view the orig­i­nal, with more illus­tra­tions, please click here.

A work of art on Churchill’s art

This beau­ti­ful book com­bines Churchill’s favorite French paint­ing venues with fas­tid­i­ous research on their loca­tions. The hor­i­zon­tal for­mat blends qual­i­ty bind­ing with bril­liant col­or on thick, coat­ed paper, and the price is a bar­gain. Paul Raf­fer­ty, him­self an artist, brings Churchill’s oils alive as adjuncts to WSC’s per­son­al­i­ty. (N.B.: this writer played a minor part in ver­i­fy­ing quotations.)…

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New Annotated Bibliography of Works About Churchill, 1905-2020

New Annotated Bibliography of Works About Churchill, 1905-2020

  s To view and search these “Works about,” please vis­it the Bib­li­og­ra­phy at the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. Here­with, some com­ments and a few sam­ple entries.

Introduction

In 2018, Andrew Roberts wrote in Churchill: Walk­ing with Des­tiny, works about Sir Win­ston Churchill topped 1000. This cat­a­logue piles on, list­ing more than 1100, near­ly 900 of which we have anno­tat­ed. Win­ston Churchill was the sub­ject of his first biog­ra­phy in 1905 when he was 30 years old. The flow hasn’t stopped. Here in the 21st cen­tu­ry, 100 years lat­er, some years see over 20 new Churchill titles.…

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Churchill and the White Russians: The Russian Civil War, 1919

Churchill and the White Russians: The Russian Civil War, 1919

Extract­ed from “Churchill: A Mil­lion Allied Sol­diers to Fight for the White Rus­sians?” for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project, Novem­ber 2019. For the orig­i­nal text click here.

A read­er refers us to The Polar Bear Expe­di­tion: The Heroes of America’s For­got­ten Inva­sion of Rus­sia 1918-1919 (2019). It repeats a mis­un­der­stand­ing about Churchill’s role in aid­ing the White Rus­sians against the Bol­she­viks. By the spring of 1919 in Rus­sia, we read:

…the cat was out of the bag: whether its allies—English, French, White Russians—liked it nor not, the U.S. was pulling out. On March 4, the British War Cab­i­net decid­ed to fol­low suit, ignor­ing the argu­ments of the vir­u­lent­ly anti-Bol­she­vik Win­ston Churchill, who as sec­re­tary of war had pro­posed increas­ing the Allied com­mit­ment in Rus­sia to one mil­lion men.…

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Churchill: Scattershot Snipe and the Answers to It

Churchill: Scattershot Snipe and the Answers to It

My broth­er Andrew Roberts, author of the new and vital Churchill: Walk­ing with Des­tiny, pass­es along a read­er snipe which nails rick­ety new planks on the creepy ship Churchill Snipes. Incred­i­ble as it may seem, the writer man­ages to cre­ate a few we’ve nev­er heard before. They will be added to my “Assault on Churchill: A Reader’s Guide.” As will anoth­er far­ra­go by a loopy astro­naut, about which you’ve prob­a­bly already heard.

Snipe synopsis

Snipe 1) “Why doesn’t Andrew Roberts spell out Churchill’s mis­takes? They were not all that innocent.”

Whole sem­i­nars could be devot­ed to whether Churchill’s mistakes—in fact exhaus­tive­ly cat­a­logued by Roberts—were inno­cent and well intend­ed, or mali­cious­ly cal­cu­lat­ed.…

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“Advise and Consent” by Allen Drury: Mandatory Viewing by Senators?

“Advise and Consent” by Allen Drury: Mandatory Viewing by Senators?

“And now for something completely different”

Apro­pos, of course, no cur­rent events in par­tic­u­lar, I pass along a rec­om­men­da­tion. It’s from a friend and fel­low polit­i­cal junkie. “The entire Unit­ed States Sen­ate should be required to sit through an end­less looped show­ing of Advise and Con­sent.” The 1962 film is based on Allen Drury’s  Pulitzer-prize win­ning  1959 nov­el. In the unlike­ly event you do not remem­ber the film, click here.

I agree utter­ly. I must watch it again. It is not a light­heart­ed flick….

The Plot (excerpt from Wikipedia)

The Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States nom­i­nates Robert A. Leff­in­g­well as Sec­re­tary of State.…

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Churchill, Women’s Suffrage and “Black Friday,” November 1910

Churchill, Women’s Suffrage and “Black Friday,” November 1910

“Churchill, Suf­frage and Black Fri­day”: excerpt­ed from my arti­cle for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the full text, includ­ing Churchill’s let­ters to the head of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police (22 Novem­ber 1910) and to Prime Min­is­ter Asquith (21 Decem­ber 1911), click here.

A Lon­don Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent writes for help with his dis­ser­ta­tion. Its top­ic is the rela­tion­ship between Home Sec­re­tary Win­ston Churchill, the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police, and their han­dling of women’s suf­frage demon­stra­tors in Novem­ber 1910. His ques­tions illus­trate Churchill’s domes­tic states­man­ship. Our answers refute the belief that Churchill stri­dent­ly opposed women’s suf­frage except on iso­lat­ed occa­sions in polit­i­cal tactics.…

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Introduction to “The Dream”: Churchill’s Haunting Short Story

Introduction to “The Dream”: Churchill’s Haunting Short Story

The Dream is repub­lished (from Nev­er Despair 1945-1965, Vol­ume 8 of the offi­cial biog­ra­phy) by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. To read it in its entire­ty, click here.

The Dream…

… is the most mys­te­ri­ous and ethe­re­al sto­ry Win­ston Churchill ever wrote. Yet the more we know about him, the bet­ter we may under­stand how he came to write it.

Replete with broad-sweep Churchillian nar­ra­tive, The Dream con­tains many ref­er­ences to now-obscure peo­ple, places and things. The new online ver­sion pub­lished by Hills­dale pro­vides links to all of them. You need only click on any unfa­mil­iar name or term for links to online ref­er­ences.…

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“Churchill’s Bodyguard” Mini-series: Walter H. Thompson

“Churchill’s Bodyguard” Mini-series: Walter H. Thompson

The suc­cess of the movie Dark­est Hour has prompt­ed many to look up oth­er film and video pre­sen­ta­tions of the Churchill saga. One of these is the 2005 series on Wal­ter Thomp­son, Churchill’s Body­guard, which a col­league tells me is a use­ful doc­u­men­tary. It is. All thir­teen episodes are on YouTube. I watched sev­er­al with­out complaint—rare for me.

Walter Henry Thompson 

…was Win­ston Churchill’s pro­tec­tion offi­cer and detec­tive, on and off between 1921 and 1945. They had many adven­tures togeth­er, and Thomp­son wrote four books about his expe­ri­ences. The first, Guard from the Yard (1938, now very rare) involved Churchill and oth­ers whom Thomp­son protected.…

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Hyde Park Gate: Churchill’s London Home, 1945-1965

Hyde Park Gate: Churchill’s London Home, 1945-1965

Ques­tion: “Churchill owned both 27 and 28 Hyde Park Gate. Which one did he live in?” Answer: both.

1945-51

The Churchills pur­chased 28 Hyde Park Gate in Sep­tem­ber 1945. The fine attached brick house stands in a qui­et cul-de-sac, close to Hyde Park and Kens­ing­ton Gar­dens. They acquired the abut­ting num­ber 27 in March 1946. Accord­ing to Ste­fan Buczacki’s excel­lent book, Churchill and Chartwell, the gar­den wall between the two res­i­dences was knocked out to pro­vide a sin­gle gar­den. Num­ber 27 was ini­tial­ly acquired for need­ed office space, though Clemen­tine Churchill thought it an extrav­a­gance.…

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Brendan Bracken: “Winston’s Faithful Chela”

Brendan Bracken: “Winston’s Faithful Chela”

Stan­ley Bald­win, show­ing an unex­pect­ed famil­iar­i­ty with Indi­an phras­es, described Bren­dan Brack­en as ‘Winston’s faith­ful chela,‘ wrote the biog­ra­ph­er Charles Lysaght. “This is what gave Brack­en his place in his­to­ry, a minor but still an impor­tant one.”

The Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project has pub­lished two arti­cles on Bren­dan Brack­en, Churchill’s loy­al ally and friend for four decades. The first begins with a mem­oir by the late Ron Rob­bins, a Cana­di­an jour­nal­ist who ear­ly on cov­ered the House of Com­mons, where he met Brack­en. The post­script is by me, fol­lowed by reviews of the two Brack­en books by George Gale and A.J.P.

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