“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
I am pleased to post this press release, and honored to be associated with the distinguished Churchill scholars at Hillsdale. Without their work, the Churchill Official Biography would be out of print and unfinished. With them, you can buy every volume at a modest price, all 31 volumes. It's nice to be among friends.
After playing doormat to the National League East for ages; after blowing a sure Division Series in 2012, we all expected our Washington Nationals to put a stamp on the 90th anniversary of 1924—the last year Washington won the World Series. Why it didn't happen...
Laguna Hills, Calif., October 6th— Curt Zoller, a Churchill scholar for a third of a century, passed away a week short of his 94th birthday. “Over the last two years his health had been rapidly declining,” writes his daughter Marsha, “but he tried so hard to ‘Never give in.'”
A serious book collector, Curt was a longtime columnist for Finest Hour, the Churchill quarterly I edited from 1982 to 2014. There he wrote “Churchilltrivia,” the Quiz column. In 2004 he published an invaluable reference, The Annotated Bibliography of Works About Sir Winston S. Churchill. In it, Curt logged thousands of books, articles and dissertations.…
N.B. A shorter version of this piece on Nigel Farage appeared in The Weekly Standard online
A few years ago Britain’s Nigel Farage was a political curiosity, head of a fringe party, gadfly member of the European Parliament, an ex-commodities broker who never went to college, dismissed as a nutter by ruling elites in London and Brussels. On 23 June 2016, he was widely credited with a key role in the referendum favoring Brexit— Britain’s exit from the European Community.
“Our Nige,” his supporters call him—personable, chatty, good-looking, beer swilling, cigarette and cigar smoking—wants Britain, not the European Union, to govern British affairs.…
Colorful politicians willing to say what they really think are rare prizes. But publishing a book on Churchill doesn't convey the right to judge what he would do today. The answer Lady Soames always gave when people said such things was: "How do you know?"
Writing in the Arizona Republic, Clay Thompson properly corrects a reader. It was not Churchill who coined the phrase, “we shall squeeze Germany until the pips squeak.” Mr. Thompson correctly replied that the author was likely Sir Eric Campbell-Geddes, First Lord of the Admiralty in 1917-19. No sooner had Geddes uttered it than the line was ascribed to Prime Minister David Lloyd George. It worked well in the 1918 British general election, which Lloyd George handily won.
Lloyd George was personally not revenge-minded. But as a politician he was all too ready to adopt the popular cry “Hang the Kaiser.”…
On 23 June 2014 Washington Nationals star third baseman Ryan Zimmerman went out with a hamstring injury that may sideline him for the rest of the season. The effect on the team's play was astonishing. Postscript: he was soon back, and stayed on the roster until he retired in 2021. He was not Goose Goslin, however.
Before we pigeonhole Churchill as an unrepentant imperialist, consider what he and Gandhi had in common. Gandhi and Churchill viewed a break-up of the subcontinent with regret and sadness. Both feared religious extremism, Hindu or Muslim. Each believed in the peaceful settlement of boundary disputes. Both strove for liberty. Such precepts more widely held would be welcome today. In Parliament Square, Churchill will be fine with Gandhi.
Who was Moe Berg? Merely a major baseball league catcher who spoke fifteen languages and spied for his country in World War II. He has no brass plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame, but they display his Medal of Merit.
