Category: Reviews

Book, media, audio and video reviews by Richard M. Langworth

Intrepid
The statue of William Stephenson in First World War military aviator uniform near Memorial Boulevard in Winnipeg Manitoba. (Photo by David Nyjof, Creative Commons)
How Genuine was William Stephenson (Cable Address Intrepid)?

How Genuine was William Stephenson (Cable Address Intrepid)?

Comments 0 Comments
Q: A man called Intrepid?

I just read William Stevenson’s A Man Called Intre­pid. One of the cen­ter­pieces recounts the “secret war,” includ­ing espi­onage and covert action, was Ultra/Enigma and Bletch­ley Park’s activities.

Above all, the book states, Churchill meant to keep the Ultra secret. It claims Churchill knew the Nazis’ plan to car­pet-bomb Coven­try in Novem­ber 1940—and did noth­ing. He says Churchill feared giv­ing away the fact the the British were read­ing Ger­man codes.  Have you read this account?  I think you found that claim to be false. Was Stephen­son the British super-spy his biog­ra­ph­er insists he was?…

Read More Read More

Parker
Best pals by 1942: Ambassadors to the United States Lord Halifax and Maxim Litvinov chatting at the New Zealand Legation, Washington. (Photo by Marjory Collins, U.S. National Archives, public domain)
Alistair Parker Presents a Balanced, Scholarly Cambridge Seminar

Alistair Parker Presents a Balanced, Scholarly Cambridge Seminar

Comments 0 Comments

Review of Park­er excerpt­ed from the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the orig­i­nal text includ­ing more images and end­notes, please click here. Sub­scrip­tions to this site are free. You will receive reg­u­lar notices of new posts as pub­lished. Just scroll to SUBSCRIBE AND FOLLOW. Your email address guar­an­teed to remain a rid­dle wrapped in a mys­tery inside an enigma.

* * *

Alis­tair Park­er, ed., Win­ston Churchill: Stud­ies in States­man­ship. Lon­don: Brasseys, 2003, 282 pages, paper­back, Ama­zon $32; hard­bound copies also available.

“There are times,” wrote a great Cam­bridge schol­ar, Sir Geof­frey Elton, “when I incline to judge all his­to­ri­ans by their opin­ion of Win­ston Churchill: whether they can see that no mat­ter how much bet­ter the details, often dam­ag­ing, of man and career become known, he still remains, quite sim­ply, a great man.”…

Read More Read More

Josh Ireland
Three generations, now sadly all gone, in court dress for the Coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II: Randolph, Sir Winston and “young Winston,” 1953. (Wikimedia Commons)
Old Victory’s Pride (Extended Review): “Churchill & Son” by Josh Ireland

Old Victory’s Pride (Extended Review): “Churchill & Son” by Josh Ireland

Comments 1 Comment
"Randolph, Hope and Glory": Writing his father's biography was his chance at redemption, “to create a lasting record of his love and devotion to the man he had loved more than any other person he had ever known. In the process of telling the story of his father’s life, he belatedly gave meaning to his own.”

Read More Read More

Churchill's Britain
Churchill Barrier #2, linking Lamb Holm and Glimps Holm, Scapa Flow. On 14 October 1939, in a daring feat of seamanship, Günther Prien navigated U-47 into Scapa to torpedo HMS Royal Oak. On Churchill Tour VII Lord Jellicoe, son of the great Admiral, accompanied our visit to Scapa, including a view of Royal Oak on the bottom, reverently preserved as a war memorial . (BillC, Wikimedia Creative Commons)
“Churchill’s Britain”: Good Try, But More is Needed

“Churchill’s Britain”: Good Try, But More is Needed

Comments 0 Comments

Peter Clark, Churchill’s Britain: From the Antrim Coast to the Isle of Wight. Lon­don: Haus Pub­lish­ing, 2020, 240 pp., no illus­tra­tions, $29.95, Ama­zon $27.48, Kin­dle $22.49. Excerpt­ed from a review for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. To read the orig­i­nal, click here.

N.B. March 2021: The orig­i­nal post con­tains author Clark’s response, which is about the most cor­dial reply to a grumpy review I’ve ever read. He kind­ly takes heed of my crit­i­cisms and says he will attend to them in the paper­back in due course. RML

Churchill’s Britain abridged

I did want to like this book.…

Read More Read More

Remick
Frank Sinatra and Lee Remick in “The Detective,” 1968. (20th Century Fox, Wikimedia Commons)
Remembering Lee Remick as Lady Randolph Churchill

Remembering Lee Remick as Lady Randolph Churchill

Comments 0 Comments

Lee Remick 1935-1991

May 2021 marks thir­ty years since we lost dear Lee Remick. She was the accom­plished actress who brought Win­ston Churchill’s moth­er vivid­ly to the screen.

One of the finest-ever Churchill films,  Jen­nie: Lady Ran­dolph Churchill, is avail­able on CD. It was orig­i­nal­ly a tele­vi­sion doc­u­men­tary, “The Life and Loves of Jen­nie Churchill,” broad­cast on ITV in Britain and PBS in the USA in 1974. Co-star­ring with Remick were Ronald Pick­up as Lord Ran­dolph Churchill and War­ren Clarke as young Winston.

Lee and Greg

In 1991, two months before she died,  we held an award din­ner for Ms.…

Read More Read More

Pilecki
The show trial of Capt. Witold Pilecki, sentenced to death and executed March 1948. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
Witold Pilecki: A Brave Pole Who Did His Best for Liberty

Witold Pilecki: A Brave Pole Who Did His Best for Liberty

Comments 1 Comment

Excerpt­ed from Richard Cohen and Richard Lang­worth: “Witold Pilec­ki: A Deserv­ing Addi­tion to “The Right­eous Among the Nations,” for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. Mr. Cohen is a real estate lawyer based in Lon­don and head of the Essex Branch of the Jew­ish His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety of Eng­land. For the full text and illus­tra­tions please click here.

War aim or by-product?

Jack Fair­weath­er, The Vol­un­teer: One Man, an Under­ground Army, and the Secret Mis­sion to Destroy Auschwitz. (The sto­ry of Witold Pilec­ki.) New York: Harper­Collins, 2019, $28.99, Ama­zon $20.49, Kin­dle $13.99.

By 1 August 1946 the world knew the full truth of the Holo­caust.…

Read More Read More

Jennie
Jennie in 1880, by an unknown photographer. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
“American Jennie” and Other Books on Lady Randolph Churchill

“American Jennie” and Other Books on Lady Randolph Churchill

Comments 4 Comments

A read­er requests rec­om­men­da­tions for good books about Sir Winston’s moth­er, Lady Ran­dolph Churchill (1854-1921). The most round­ed and thor­ough­ly sourced is Anne Sebba’s Amer­i­can Jen­nie (2007). Bar­bara Lang­worth pub­lished a thor­ough review and analy­sis of Jennie’s many accom­plish­ments, below. Scroll to the end for a Bib­li­og­ra­phy and com­men­tary on oth­er books about Lady Ran­dolph. RML

Barbara F. Langworth: The Right Parent Survived

Jen­nie Churchill: Winston’s Amer­i­can Moth­er, by Anne Seb­ba (Lon­don, Mur­ray, 2007).  Amer­i­can Jen­nie: The Remark­able Life of Lady Ran­dolph Churchill), (New York: Nor­ton, 2007). 

It may seem a new sto­ry to many read­ers, since the pre­vi­ous biogra­phies of Lady Ran­dolph Churchill date back up to eight decades.…

Read More Read More

Addison
The Addison Corpus: see list and links below. (Montage by Barbara Langworth)
Paul Addison, 1943-2020: What Matters is the Truth

Paul Addison, 1943-2020: What Matters is the Truth

Comments 1 Comment
29 October 1994 A fond and fun­ny mem­o­ry of Paul Addi­son is one which few know about. It came dur­ing a Wash­ing­ton sym­po­sium on “Churchill as Peace­mak­er,” lat­er pub­lished as an out­stand­ing book. Dur­ing a break, we walked over to the White House, which Paul want­ed to see. We stood at the iron fence, gaz­ing at the seat of pow­er across the lawn. . As we chat­ted, Paul remarked on how close we were to the build­ing itself. “The secu­ri­ty seems pret­ty light,” he said. “It’s not hard to visu­al­ize some stray lunatic stand­ing here and spray­ing the walls with bullets.”…

Read More Read More

Reves
Churchill with Emery Reves at Le Bourget Airport, Paris. Behind them is an Imperial Airways Handley Page “Horatius” airliner, used in the Croydon-Paris service. (From the book jacket and Martin Gilbert Papers at Hillsdale College)
Winston Churchill and Emery Reves: Correspondence, 1937-1964

Winston Churchill and Emery Reves: Correspondence, 1937-1964

Comments 0 Comments

Win­ston Churchill and Emery Reves: Cor­re­spon­dence, 1937-1964, edit­ed by Sir Mar­tin Gilbert. Austin: Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas Press, 1997, 415 pages, Ama­zon $8.95. This updat­ed review was first pub­lished by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project.

Emery Reves, from the ground up

Admir­ers of Sir Mar­tin Gilbert were pleased and touched to see his chron­i­cle appear, now over twen­ty years ago. But few expect­ed it would amount to much more than a use­ful research tool. We were wrong, and quick­ly real­ized why Sir Mar­tin and Wendy Reves were so keen to get it published.…

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.