“Not a day passes when Winston Churchill, who proved indispensable WHEN LIBERTY HUNG IN THE BALANCE is not accused of something dreadful, from misogyny to warmongering. My book, Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality, confronts this busy industry.” —RML
“The Social Dilemma” and Churchill’s “Mass Effects in Modern Life”
“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.
“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?…
What we have here is a rough capsule history of the war, along with several clangers and exaggerations. But in the main this account is, as Churchill once said about Britain and the Axis ganging up against Russia: “Too easy to be good.”
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.…
Like his lifelong friend Hilaire Belloc, Churchill never looked on women as intellectual inferiors. That view, Belloc said, "was held only by young, unmarried men. The rest of us, as we grow older, come to look on the intelligence of women first with reverence, then with stupor, and finally with terror.” I don't know about stupor and terror, but the first was true of Winston Churchill.
“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.…
We are asked: what was the first Winston Churchill political cartoon? The earliest discovered so far is this one, from the “Essence of Parliament” column in Punch on 5 December 1900. It appeared about two months after young Winston was elected Member of Parliament for Oldham, Lancashire, on 1 October. Alas the cartoon (artist unknown) poses more questions than it answers. Churchill is being urged to exhibit modesty, a quality he was not known for. But who is doing the urging? We asked several authorities.
I first thought the man at right might be Joseph Chamberlain, known for his monocle.…
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.…
“Three Outstanding War Books” is Excerpted from an essay for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. Why settle for the excerpt when you can read the whole thing full-strength? Click here.
Better yet, join 60,000 readers of Hillsdale essays by the world’s best Churchill historians by subscribing. You will receive regular notices (“Weekly Winstons”) of new articles as published. Simply visit https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/, scroll to bottom, and fill in your email in the box entitled “Stay in touch with us.” (Your email remains strictly private and is never sold to purveyors, salespersons, auction houses, or Things that go Bump in the Night.)…
Excerpted from the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. Why settle for the excerpt when you can read the whole thing ? Click here.
Please join 60,000 readers of Hillsdale essays by the world’s best Churchill historians by subscribing: visit https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/, scroll to bottom, and fill in your email in the box, “Stay in touch with us.” (Your email remains strictly private and is never sold or distributed to anyone.)
“Sir Winston’s Gettysburg essay…
...is a fantasy which transcends all my objections to exploring the what-ifs and might-have-beens in that great war.”…
"Casablanca's" famous Letters of Transit were signed by General Maxime Weygand, not de Gaulle and not Darlan. This is confirmed by watching the Peter Lorre episode on YouTube. Lorres's character can clearly be heard saying "General Weygand." There is no evidence that a subtitle ever appeared substituting the names of Darlan or de Gaulle for American audiences. (Thanks to reader James Overmeyer for pointing this out.
