Reviews Archives - Richard M. Langworth

“Empire First”: the Bowman War on Churchill’s D-Day

24 February 2024 Comments 1 Comment

Greenock, Scotland, played a noble part in Britain’s war effort. Perhaps its historians might now busy themselves with a travelogue. They could tell of an old man’s courageous journeys from Greenock into U-boat-infested seas in pursuit of victory in a global war. Or they could describe the ships and munitions built in Greenock to support the “lodgment on the continent” the old man had supported since 1941. They might even mention the Mulberry Harbors, the old man’s conception that made possible a successful D-Day.

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Manchester and Reid: “The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm”

20 December 2023 Comments 2 Comments

In a flourish suitable to a great work, Paul Reid ends his story on January 30th, 1965 with the best words Lord Moran ever wrote: "The village stations on the way to Bladon were crowded with his countrymen, and at Bladon in a country churchyard, in the stillness of a winter evening, in the presence of his family and a few friends, Winston Churchill was committed to English earth, which in his finest hour he had held inviolate." Bill Manchester would like that.

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Official Biographay — Sir Martin Gilbert at Chartwell, 2006. HIs memory and devotion live on in his books and the hearts of his friends.

“In Search of Churchill,” by Martin Gilbert: An Appreciation

20 September 2023 Comments 2 Comments

"In Search of Churchill "is deeply personal—Sir Martin’s answer to all those critics over the years who accused him of being uncritical (yet all the criticisms of WSC are there). Time and again, Martin explains, he was prepared to find Churchill's tragic flaw. And then, having examined more evidence than anyone alive or dead, he would come away more impressed with hiswisdom, generosity and humanity: “I might find him adopting views with which I disagreed. But there would be nothing to cause me to think: ‘How shocking, how appalling.’”

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Williams on Her Majesty and Churchill: Get It Right

10 September 2023 Comments 0 Comments

A beautiful tribute to The Queen and Winston Churchill—only a click away—is by David Dilks. This book reminded me of it. Not because it is related to what Dr. Dilks wrote, but because it should have been. A good, short appreciation of their relationship, now that the last page has been turned for both, is needed. This paperback leaves us waiting.

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Jock: Churchill’s Cat, by Larry Kryske

10 August 2023 Comments 2 Comments

Here Kryske captures what most reporters ignore: the great man’s sadness in twilight. Clementine reminds him of all the good he had accomplished. Winston Churchill feels only remorse. “I have profound misgivings about the future. Our leaders are more concerned with appearance than substance. Grave dangers lie before us. Who will be the voice in the wilderness now?” Does that say anything to us in 2023? I fear so.

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Girlfriends: Was Winston Churchill a Young Bacchanal?

30 March 2023 Comments 0 Comments

Churchill and Lord Rosebery once dated a pair of “Gaiety Girls.” Each of them took one home. Alas, Winston’s date later told Rosebery he’d “done nothing but talk into the small hours on the subject of himself.” This sounds familiar from reports by his actual lady friends. (Clementine Hozier said the same.)

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The Sordid History of Churchill’s Collected Works

10 March 2023 Comments 0 Comments

The Collected Works are less important than their spectacular appearance suggests. However incomplete, they do constitute the first collected edition. But lacking the original texts, they are not bibliographically compelling: “expensive reprints,” as one cynic put it. Collectors prefer to hold a book in the form Sir Winston first gave it to the world (errors and all). So the Works will never replace first editions.

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Pat Buchanan and the Art of the Selective Quote

14 February 2023 Comments 1 Comment

No animus toward Pat. I admired him and even voted for him in a NH Primary. I helped him with a couple of items during his research (while lampooning his beliefs in friendly banter). “I like a man who grins when he fights,” as Churchill said. But a problem with his book is the rampant use of selective quotes. Partial quotations edited to distort reality, or to fit a predetermined conclusion are out of bounds.

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Michael Dobbs Churchill Novels

5 January 2023 Comments 2 Comments

Dobbs Churchill novels are of a special genre. Little stories, intertwined with the main plot, tell a story endlessly repeated in Britain, whose citizens knew better than anyone the sheer horror of the Second World War. This is fiction with a sense of place and and character. It does not strain historical credulity. Dobbs gives us an honest picture of Churchill without slapping him with perceived foibles. (Churchill's real foibles are plain enough.)

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Telling Off the Prez: “Love Actually” Still Sings

15 December 2022 Comments 0 Comments

"I love that word 'relationship.' Covers all manner of sins, doesn't it? I fear that this has become a bad relationship.... We may be a small country, but we're a great one too—the country of Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter—David Beckham's right foot. David Beckham's left foot for that matter." Hugh Grant at his best.

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