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Maisky and Churchill: Hard to Put Down

Maisky and Churchill: Hard to Put Down

Ivan Maisky: “The great­est sin of mod­ern states­man is vac­il­la­tion and ambi­gu­i­ty of thought and action.”

Gabriel Gorodet­sky, ed., The Maisky Diaries: Red Ambas­sador to the Court of St. James’s. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 634 pages, $28.80, Kin­dle $19.99, audio­book $36.32.

Excerpt­ed from the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. To read in full, click here.

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A strik­ing work of schol­ar­ship (actu­al­ly an abridge­ment of a three-vol­ume com­plete work com­ing in 2016), this book will inspire fresh schol­ar­ship on Churchill, Rus­sia and World War II. Ivan Maisky was a pen­e­trat­ing observ­er of 1932-43 Britain, and Gabriel Gorodet­sky con­nects every long gap in his diaries with informed accounts of what was hap­pen­ing.…

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Marshall: “Noblest Roman of Them All”

Marshall: “Noblest Roman of Them All”

Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty Press releas­es this month the sev­enth and final vol­ume of The Papers of George Catlett Mar­shall: “The Man of the Age,” Octo­ber 1, 1949 – Octo­ber 16, 1959. It was mas­ter­ful­ly edit­ed by Mark Stol­er and Daniel Holt under the aus­pices of the Mar­shall Cen­ter. It joins its pre­de­ces­sors pre­sent­ing the papers of one of the great­est gen­er­als and states­men of his age (1880-1959). I quick­ly assigned it for review by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project, for its many ref­er­ences to Churchill in George Marshall’s final phase. This and the pre­vi­ous vol­ume are indis­pens­able for any­one wish­ing to under­stand the com­pli­cat­ed inter­na­tion­al scene imme­di­ate­ly after World War II.…

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Thatcher to Congress, 1985: Worth Remembering

Thatcher to Congress, 1985: Worth Remembering

Mar­garet Thatch­er, in her thought­ful and pre­scient remarks, post­ed by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project, reached back into his­to­ry to recall how far the Eng­lish-Speak­ing Peo­ples have come since vic­to­ry in World War II, and how much remained to accom­plish. Like Churchill, Lady Thatch­er would be pleased that for the most part, they met the tests before them, in his words, with “a stern sen­ti­ment of impar­tial jus­tice, and above all the love of per­son­al free­dom, or as Kipling put it: ‘Leave to live by no man’s leave under­neath the law.’”…

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A.L. Rowse with Chartwell and Churchill, 1955

A.L. Rowse with Chartwell and Churchill, 1955

"I left in late afternoon. Beaverbrook was coming down to dine and spend the evening, till then he was going off to bed. Evening sun poured from the west into the front door, upon the flowers, the head of Roosevelt sculpted in wood, the aged bulky figure waving goodbye. I sank back exhausted in the lordly car, thrilled by it all, a last glimpse of the flag over Chartwell—and went back to Oxford to write it all down. It is only today, very many years after, that it occurs to me that he thought I would, and meant me to."

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Britain’s Leave Debate: Who’s Churchill? Who’s Stalin?

Britain’s Leave Debate: Who’s Churchill? Who’s Stalin?

The cam­paign to Leave is heat­ing up. Take Grass­roots Out, a “com­bined oper­a­tion” sup­port­ing Brexit—the cam­paign for Great Britain to exit the Euro­pean Union. G-O field­ed a broad spec­trum of speak­ers in Lon­don Feb­ru­ary 19th. Along with UK Inde­pen­dence Par­ty leader Nigel Farage were Con­ser­v­a­tive Sir William Cash, Labour’s Kate Hoey, econ­o­mist Ruth Lea, and a Lon­don cab driver.

The most unex­pect­ed Leave speak­er was the far-left for­mer Labour MP and head of the social­ist Respect Par­ty. Mr. George Gal­loway was imme­di­ate­ly queried about his new colleagues.

“We are not pals,” Gal­loway replied.…

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mythology
Vox Non-Populi: More Churchill Mythology

Vox Non-Populi: More Churchill Mythology

Win­ston Churchill was no saint; it is a dis­ser­vice to pre­tend he was. But he is too com­plex  to be pigeon­holed by writ­ers who crit­i­cize selec­tive­ly. Hills­dale College’s Churchill Project responds to the mythol­o­gy. Read full arti­cle.

Excerpt

Win­ston Churchill is in the news, as is often the case.  On Feb­ru­ary 11th, Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Bernie Sanders had words of praise for Churchill’s war lead­er­ship. Vox Media has crit­i­cized him and Churchill in sharp lan­guage.  Are the crit­i­cisms of Churchill true?

Dur­ing the Demo­c­rat debate on 11 Feb­ru­ary 2-16, can­di­dates were asked to name two lead­ers, one Amer­i­can and one for­eign, who would influ­ence their pol­i­cy deci­sions.…

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Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

Per the pre­vi­ous post, I append for read­er com­ment the con­tents of my next book, Win­ston Churchill, Myth and Real­i­ty: What Churchill Stood For.

I have writ­ten on most of these mat­ters in the past; the book recasts it afresh. I also acknowl­edge and cross-ref­er­ence the work of experts who know far more than I, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the fields of geneal­o­gy and med­i­cine. I would be glad to hear your thoughts; please use the “con­tact” page.

The his­to­ri­an David Stafford wrote: “Myth only devel­ops and takes hold when the time is right, and the cli­mate has long been ripe for the emer­gence of myths about a wartime hero who stood firm against a total­i­tar­i­an foe and smote an evil empire.”…

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Avoidable War
Reviews of “Churchill and the Avoidable War”

Reviews of “Churchill and the Avoidable War”

"I’ve touched on this before: if Hitler had been assassinated in 1937, he would have gone down in history as one of the greatest Germans. If assassinated in late 1941, before the tide began to turn, he would have gone down among Germans as a military genius. Horrible as it is to say or contemplate, it was necessary for him to stay around to the bitter end so that Germans could see what fools he made of them." —Manfred Weidhorn

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Paris
(Wikimedia Commons)
Paris, 13 November 2015: A Churchill Moment for M. Hollande

Paris, 13 November 2015: A Churchill Moment for M. Hollande

“A Churchill Moment for M. Hol­lande” is excerpt­ed from my arti­cle in The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor, 18 Novem­ber 2015.

Dear M. Hollande…

The news from France is very bad and I grieve for the gal­lant French peo­ple who have fall­en into this ter­ri­ble mis­for­tune. Noth­ing will alter our feel­ings towards them or our faith that the genius of France will rise again.  —Win­ston S. Churchill, 4 June 1940

On the 2015 Paris attacks: With every mur­der­ous threat to civ­i­liza­tion we are asked: “Where are our Churchills?” There isn’t one, and we should not expect one.…

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Was WW2 Avoidable?

Was WW2 Avoidable?

con­tin­ued from pre­vi­ous post…

Churchill and the Avoid­able War

Pref­ace

This book exam­ines Churchill’s the­o­ry that “time­ly action” could have forced Hitler to recoil, and a dev­as­tat­ing cat­a­stro­phe avoid­ed. We con­sid­er his pro­pos­als, and the degree to which he pur­sued them. Churchill was both right and wrong. He was right that Hitler could have been stopped. He was wrong in not doing all he could to stop him. The result is a cor­rec­tive to tra­di­tion­al argu­ments, both of Churchill’s crit­ics and defend­ers. Whether the war was avoid­able hangs on these issues.

Chap­ter 1. Ger­many Arm­ing:  Encoun­ter­ing Hitler, 1930-34

“There is no dif­fi­cul­ty at all in hav­ing cor­dial rela­tions between the peoples….But…

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