Category: In the News

Social Dilemma
A modern railway station anywhere, any time. (Rawpixel.com, Wikimedia Creative Commons)
“The Social Dilemma” and Churchill’s “Mass Effects in Modern Life”

“The Social Dilemma” and Churchill’s “Mass Effects in Modern Life”

Comments 0 Comments

“The Social Dilem­ma” is excerpt­ed from an Essay on Win­ston Churchill’s 146th birth­day, 30 Novem­ber 2020, pub­lished by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the orig­i­nal post, please click here.

“The Social Dilemma”: Netflix, 2020, 90 minutes.

“Is not mankind already escap­ing from the con­trol of indi­vid­u­als? Are not our affairs increas­ing­ly being set­tled by mass process­es? Are not mod­ern conditions—at any rate through­out the Eng­lish-speak­ing communities—hostile to the devel­op­ment of out­stand­ing per­son­al­i­ties and to their influ­ence upon events: and last­ly if this be true, will it be for our greater good and glo­ry?…

Read More Read More

papers
“The largest single private repository of recent British history”: Churchill Archives Centre and dining hall, Churchill College Cambridge. (Cmglee, Creative Commons)
Old Kerfuffles Die Hard: The Churchill Papers Flap is Back

Old Kerfuffles Die Hard: The Churchill Papers Flap is Back

Comments 1 Comment

“Boris John­son, who has sought com­par­i­son with Win­ston Churchill, denounced spend­ing nation­al lot­tery mon­ey to save the wartime leader’s per­son­al papers for the nation,” chor­tled The Guardian in Decem­ber. (The Churchill Papers cov­er 1874-1945. Lady Churchill donat­ed the post-1945 Chartwell Papers to the Churchill Archives in 1965.)

In April 1995 John­son, then a colum­nist for the Dai­ly Tele­graph, deplored the £12.5 mil­lion pur­chase of Churchill Papers for the nation. The lot­tery-sup­port­ed Nation­al Her­itage Memo­r­i­al Fund, said John­son, was frit­ter­ing away mon­ey on point­less projects and ben­e­fit­ing Tory grandees. John­son added: “…sel­dom in the field of human avarice was so much spent by so many on so little …”

The Memo­r­i­al Fund replied the Churchill Papers were a nation­al heir­loom under threat of being sold out­side the coun­try.…

Read More Read More

Mather
“With his only grandchild Maggie Sue. She is 9 now, but it shows the joy they had in each other.” —Alexandra Mather Bourne
He Never Doubted Clouds Would Break: John H. Mather 1943-2020

He Never Doubted Clouds Would Break: John H. Mather 1943-2020

Comments 0 Comments

“Why are you buy­ing expen­sive pills over the counter?” asked Dr. John Math­er. We were in an ele­va­tor dur­ing a 2001 Churchill Con­fer­ence. “Don’t you have an hon­or­able dis­charge from the Coast Guard?” He was then a Com­man­der in the U.S. Pub­lic Health Ser­vice and Assis­tant Inspec­tor Gen­er­al at the Veteran’s Admin­is­tra­tion. I’d nev­er thought my four years with the USCG wor­thy of any­thing spe­cial, but I did have my DD-214. Math­er said I was enti­tled: “We issue cheap pills.”

In the lift with us was Luce Churchill, mar­ried to Sir Winston’s grand­son.…

Read More Read More

Aryan
Winston Churchill, 1904, shorty after his interview with Gustavus Ohlinger. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Churchll’s “Aryan Stock” Quotation: Principles, Facts and Heresies

Churchll’s “Aryan Stock” Quotation: Principles, Facts and Heresies

Comments 5 Comments
An essay on Churchill’s 146th birthday.  “The Aryan stock is bound to triumph”

Suf­fer­ers from “Churchill Derange­ment Syn­drome” hold “Aryan stock” high among Win­ston Churchill’s appalling utter­ances. The remark rose again in cor­re­spon­dence with a jour­nal­ist. I dug out for him the back­ground of that remark, but his report omit­ted it. Out of con­text the quote is mis­lead­ing, so I guess that’s just as well. But rather than write off sev­er­al hours’ research, the facts might here serve to advance reality.

Wales in its Welsh Wis­dom is think­ing of mov­ing stat­ues of Churchill, Nel­son and Gand­hi to a muse­um, the Dai­ly Tele­graph informs us.…

Read More Read More

Official Biography
At 31 volumes, eight narrative and 23 of documents, the Official Biography, “Winston S. Churchill,” is the longest on the planet. (Photo: Hillsdale College)
“Winston S. Churchill”: The Triumphant Story of the Official Biography

“Winston S. Churchill”: The Triumphant Story of the Official Biography

Comments 0 Comments

This his­to­ry of the Offi­cial Biog­ra­phy was first pub­lished in Finest Hour 190, Fourth Quar­ter 2020

“We go back a long way,” Hills­dale Col­lege Pres­i­dent Lar­ry Arnn recent­ly remind­ed me. “I knew Dal New­field.” He real­ized that would invoke a fond mem­o­ry. A few still remem­ber the man respon­si­ble for where some of us are today.

Dal­ton New­field was a Sacra­men­to army vet­er­an who had admired Win­ston Churchill since he saw him live dur­ing World War II. In 1970, I shrank away from Finest Hour after the first eleven issues. I was clear­ing the decks for an auto­mo­tive writ­ing career in New York City.…

Read More Read More

Democracy
As Churchill addressed Liverpool Dockworkers, 25 April 1941, British forces were withdrawing from Greece. 3 1/2 years later they were back, and Churchill was under fire for interfering with democracy. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
“Antithesis of Democracy” (Or: Winston Churchill & Portland)

“Antithesis of Democracy” (Or: Winston Churchill & Portland)

Comments 0 Comments
Churchill’s stunning relevancy

It is remark­able how we still encounter in Churchill words of astound­ing cur­ren­cy. A friend in Port­land, Ore­gon asked for ver­i­fi­ca­tion of a Churchill quo­ta­tion: “A love for tra­di­tion has nev­er weak­ened a nation, indeed it has strength­ened nations in their hour of per­il….”  (“The Tasks which Lie Before Us,” House of Com­mons, 29 Novem­ber 1944.)  A good, sol­id max­im, but not out of the ordinary.

AND THEN my eye fell across what Churchill said a week later.  Its cur­rent appli­ca­tion, to Port­land among oth­er places, is remarkable. December 1944 Only two months after Greece had been lib­er­at­ed from Ger­man occu­pa­tion, left­ist ele­ments of the gov­ern­ment resigned and began an armed rebel­lion.…

Read More Read More

Thatcher
Barbara Langworth with Lady Thatcher, Washington, 1993.
Margaret Thatcher 1923-2013: A Churchillian Remembrance

Margaret Thatcher 1923-2013: A Churchillian Remembrance

Comments 0 Comments
Margaret Thatcher: Excerpted from a tribute, 2013

Every­one is famil­iar with Mar­garet Thatcher’s career. Every­one depend­ing on their pol­i­tics will have their own vision. It is left to say here what she meant to the mem­o­ry of Win­ston Churchill, the prime min­is­ter she revered above all. More than any­one who lived at 10 Down­ing Street, she had real appre­ci­a­tion for him. She read his books, quot­ed him fre­quent­ly, even host­ed a din­ner for his fam­i­ly and sur­viv­ing mem­bers of his wartime coalition.

In 1993 she was in Wash­ing­ton to coin­cide with a Churchill Con­fer­ence host­ing 500 peo­ple, includ­ing 140 stu­dents, a dozen lumi­nar­ies, and ambas­sadors from Britain and the Com­mon­wealth.…

Read More Read More

Redburn
“It was such a happy day.” Owermoigne, Dorset, 28 September 1995. L-R: Jaime Snell Mendoza, Ashley Redburn, Elizabeth Snell, Gert Zoller, Richard Langworth, Margaret Redburn, Garry Clark, Curt Zoller. (Photo by James Snell)
Absent Friends: Ashley Redburn 1914-1996: “England Hath Need of Thee”

Absent Friends: Ashley Redburn 1914-1996: “England Hath Need of Thee”

Comments 1 Comment

This trib­ute to an extra­or­di­nary Churchillian was writ­ten twen­ty-three years ago in 1997. Please par­don ref­er­ences to con­tem­po­rary events no longer in the news, though it would seem that some oth­er Red­burn thoughts are star­tling­ly relevant.

Ashley Redburn, Anglo-American

Cyn­ics some­times sug­gest that West­ern Civ­i­liza­tion needs a war every few gen­er­a­tions to main­tain its sense of val­ues and faith in itself. Ash­ley Red­burn was a man who believed it. “Eng­land,” he declared grim­ly, “needs to be con­quered in war and occu­pied by a venge­ful ene­my before its spir­it can be revived. Ger­many and France between them have ruined Europe for two cen­turies.…

Read More Read More

Blade
Opinion page of “The Blade,” Toledo, Ohio, 30 August.
Get Your History Right: Reply to Reader Hasan in “The Blade” (Toledo)

Get Your History Right: Reply to Reader Hasan in “The Blade” (Toledo)

Comments 3 Comments
NPR advances the Zeitgeist; The Blade responds

On a radio talk show dis­trib­uted by Nation­al Pub­lic Radio, one Aliyah Hasi­nah said World War II had been start­ed by a Eugen­ics-besot­ted Win­ston Churchill. On August 8th, the Edi­to­r­i­al Board of The Blade replied: “NPR gave air­time to an activist who has a clear ax to grind against Churchill, yet it couldn’t find a schol­ar or biog­ra­ph­er to give us a depic­tion of the whole man? …. Churchill was not a per­fect human being. He was often wrong and some of his fail­ures were spec­tac­u­lar, But for the most part, he epit­o­mizes elo­quence, courage and love of coun­try.…

Read More Read More

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
Links on this page may earn commissions.