Category: Winston S. Churchill

fish
Angling for Utmost Fish with Roosevelt, Trout Run, Camp David, 1943.
“Utmost Fish”: A Churchill Story that is No Old Cod

“Utmost Fish”: A Churchill Story that is No Old Cod

Q: What can you tell me about Churchill’s order for “Utmost Fish” in 1939. What did this have to do with his role as First Lord of the Admi­ral­ty?” —L.S, Spokane, Wash.

A: It had noth­ing to do with his role. It was char­ac­ter­is­tic of his atten­tion to detail, and will­ing­ness to stray out­side his limits.

“Utmost Fish”

Hills­dale College’s “The Churchill Doc­u­ments,” Vol. 14, for Sep­tem­ber 1939-May 1940, car­ries a rec­ol­lec­tion by Sir Geof­frey Shake­speare. Shake­speare (1893-1980) was a Lib­er­al MP, 1923-45. He served Churchill as Par­lia­men­tary Under-Sec­re­tary of State for Domin­ion Affairs from 1940 to 1942.…

Read More Read More

Smoking
Would Winston Churchill Legalize Smoking Pot?

Would Winston Churchill Legalize Smoking Pot?

The first com­mand­ment of Lady Soames, Win­ston Churchill’s renowned daugh­ter (1922-2014), was: “Thou shalt not pro­claim what my father would do in mod­ern sit­u­a­tions.” How­ev­er, since she enjoyed smok­ing a good cig­ar on occa­sion, she might excuse the sug­ges­tion that if he were around, he would prob­a­bly not object to legal­iz­ing marijuana.

Churchill on Smoking

The jour­nal­ist and broad­cast­er Collin Brooks wrote a spright­ly essay, “Churchill the Con­ver­sa­tion­al­ist,” in Charles Eade‘s col­lec­tion of arti­cles, Churchill by His Con­tem­po­raries. (This 1953 book is inex­pen­sive and well worth own­ing. It’s an ever­green col­lec­tion of per­cep­tive pieces on aspects of Churchill’s life and character.)…

Read More Read More

Churchill Qualities: Leadership, Judgment, Humanity

Churchill Qualities: Leadership, Judgment, Humanity

Qualities

Writ­ten for a col­league who asked var­i­ous con­trib­u­tors for 300 words on the qual­i­ties of Win­ston Churchill they most admire.

Leadership

Few great lead­ers are also great writ­ers; none who were both com­pare with Win­ston Churchill. In 1940 he saved civ­i­liza­tion by keep­ing Britain in the fight until those “who hith­er­to had been half blind were half ready.” His his­tor­i­cal and bio­graph­i­cal elo­quence won a Nobel Prize. Unique­ly for a politi­cian, he thought and wrote deeply about the nature of man. He hat­ed and tried to pre­vent war. He fought to pre­serve con­sti­tu­tion­al liberty.…

Read More Read More

Churchill, Smuts and Apartheid: Questions and Answers

Churchill, Smuts and Apartheid: Questions and Answers

I read your arti­cle about bust­ing four myths about Win­ston Churchill from The Fed­er­al­ist. Here is an arti­cle I’d like you to read and hear your feed­back: “Apartheid, made in Britain: Richard Dow­den explains how Churchill, Rhodes and Smuts caused black South Africans to lose their rights.” (The Inde­pen­dent, 19 April 1994.)  —David E., Ohio

Accurate, But Not Dispositive

Mr. Dowden’s arti­cle seems to me broad­ly accu­rate, but not dispositive.

It is true that Britain dropped its oppo­si­tion to mak­ing South Africa a “white man’s coun­try” in 1909 by pass­ing the Union of South Africa Act.…

Read More Read More

Nobel
“Churchill’s Unmerited Nobel Prize”

“Churchill’s Unmerited Nobel Prize”

Where do people get these false, sad notions? The ​late Harry Jaffa said it stems from a public appetite for articles which denigrate nobility or idealism​: "Young people are led to believe that to succeed in politics is to prove oneself a clever or lucky scoundrel. The detraction of the great has become a passion for those who cannot suffer greatness." Professor Jaffa said that thirty years ago. He hadn't seen anything yet.

Read More Read More

Fateful Questions: World War II Microcosm (2)

Fateful Questions: World War II Microcosm (2)

Fateful Questions

Fate­ful Ques­tions, Sep­tem­ber 1943-April 1944, nine­teenth of a pro­ject­ed twen­ty-three doc­u­ment vol­umes in the offi­cial biog­ra­phy, Win­ston S. Churchill, is reviewed by his­to­ri­an Andrew Roberts in Com­men­tary. 

These vol­umes com­prise “every impor­tant doc­u­ment of any kind that con­cerns Churchill.” The present vol­ume sets the size record. Fate­ful Ques­tions is 2,752 pages long, rep­re­sent­ing an aver­age of more than eleven pages per day. Yet at $60, it is a tremen­dous bar­gain. Order your copy from the Hills­dale Col­lege Book­store.

Here is an excerpt from my account, “Fresh His­to­ry,” which can be read in its entire­ty at the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project.…

Read More Read More

Critique Down Under: Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel

Critique Down Under: Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel

Par­tic­u­lar­ly on the Fall of Sin­ga­pore (see ear­li­er post), a new cri­tique of Churchill miss­es the for­est for the trees and fails on the facts. Real­ly, Churchill made lots of mis­takes worth con­tem­plat­ing. But these aren’t among them.

The arti­cle appeared in south­west Australia’s Sun Coast Dai­ly on April 26th. Not exact­ly The Times, and if you don’t sub­scribe to Google Alerts you missed it. For the fun of shoot­ing fish in a bar­rel, how­ev­er, it’s worth a few min­utes of your time.

 

Critique 1: Self-Interest

“Churchill had a long and var­ied career in pol­i­tics, man­ag­ing to swap par­ties as his career needs required.” …

Read More Read More

75 Years On: What We Learn from the Fall of Singapore

75 Years On: What We Learn from the Fall of Singapore

This arti­cle first appeared as “Churchill and the Fall of Sin­ga­pore” in The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor, 22 Feb­ru­ary 2017.

“There is no worse mis­take in pub­lic lead­er­ship than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away…peo­ple can face per­il or mis­for­tune with for­ti­tude and buoy­an­cy, but they bit­ter­ly resent being deceived or find­ing that those respon­si­ble for their affairs are them­selves dwelling in a fool’s par­adise.” —Win­ston S. Churchill, 1950

On the last day of Jan­u­ary, 1942, the British blew up Singapore’s cen­tral cause­way to the main­land in a vain attempt to stop the onrush­ing Japan­ese.…

Read More Read More

Thoughts on National Churchill Day 2017: TheQuestion.com

Thoughts on National Churchill Day 2017: TheQuestion.com

Q: The­Ques­tion tries to pro­vide our read­ers with the most reli­able knowl­edge from experts in var­i­ous fields. As we cel­e­brate Nation­al Churchill Day, April 9th, we would appre­ci­ate your thoughts on three ques­tions. These are cur­rent­ly post­ed with­out respons­es on our web­site: Was Win­ston Churchill real­ly that good an artist? What made him a great leader? What was his great­est achievement?

 

TheQuestion: Churchill as Artist

​Please take a vir­tu­al tour of Hills­dale College’s recent exhi­bi­tion of Churchill paint­ings and arti­facts. Here your read­ers can decide for them­selves. The con­sen­sus among experts, how­ev­er, is that Churchill was a gift­ed ama­teur.…

Read More Read More

Fateful Questions: World War II Microcosm (1)

Fateful Questions: World War II Microcosm (1)

Fate­ful Ques­tions, Sep­tem­ber 1943-April 1944, nine­teenth of the pro­ject­ed twen­ty-three doc­u­ment vol­umes, is reviewed by his­to­ri­an Andrew Roberts in Com­men­tary.

The vol­umes com­prise “every impor­tant doc­u­ment of any kind that con­cerns Churchill, and the present vol­ume is 2,752 pages long, rep­re­sent­ing an aver­age of more than eleven pages per day.” Order your copy from the Hills­dale Col­lege Book­store.

Here is an excerpt from my account, “Fresh His­to­ry,” which can be read in its entire­ty at the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project.

Fateful Questions: Excerpts

Fas­tid­i­ous­ly com­piled by the late Sir Mar­tin Gilbert and edit­ed by Dr.…

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.