Tag: Albert Einstein

Desert Island Books: Charles Krauthammer’s “Things that Matter”

Desert Island Books: Charles Krauthammer’s “Things that Matter”

Charles Krauthammer’s Things That Mat­ter: Three Decades of Pas­sions, Pas­times and Pol­i­tics (388 pages, Crown Forum, 2013). In remem­ber­ing Dr. Krautham­mer, I said this book was one of a score I’d take with me if con­fined to a desert island. Here’s why. 

The read­er will ask: why am I plug­ging to a Churchill audi­ence a set of essays by a polit­i­cal colum­nist? Answer: because many are not polit­i­cal, yet reflect Churchillian thought. More­over, Dr. Krauthammer’s essay about Churchill is one of the best sum­maries of the man I’ve ever read. By any­body. Anywhere.

Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, in a book of over near­ly nine­ty columns and essays, the Churchill arti­cle ranks second—in Part I (enti­tled “Personal”)—after a piece on the author’s beloved broth­er, Mar­cel, who also died young after an hero­ic strug­gle.…

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How Churchill Saw the Future: Prescient Essays, 1924-1931

How Churchill Saw the Future: Prescient Essays, 1924-1931

Future Shock

In four essays in his 1932 book Thoughts and Adven­tures (tak­en from ear­li­er writ­ings), Churchill con­tem­plat­ed the future. He iden­ti­fied future trends which would affect the evo­lu­tion of democ­ra­cy, con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment, and the evo­lu­tion of soci­ety. Those essays were remark­ably pre­scient. More­over, they offer reflec­tions upon issues as promi­nent today as they were eight decades ago. Excerpt­ed from the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. To read the com­plete arti­cle click here.

“The rel­e­vance of the life of Win­ston Churchill to our time is appar­ent in the news­pa­per any day,” writes Hills­dale Col­lege Pres­i­dent Dr.…

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Mr. Stern, Mr. Trump, Churchill Quotes and Misquotes

Mr. Stern, Mr. Trump, Churchill Quotes and Misquotes

Novem­ber 27th— Writ­ing in the Dai­ly Beast, Mr. Mar­low Stern prais­es Kristin Scott Thomas (“Clemen­tine Churchill” in the new movie Dark­est Hour) and announces: “Don­ald Trump is No Win­ston Churchill.” (Past doubt, but who is?)

Mr. Stern him­self offers only one Churchill quote and gets it right: “A free press is the unsleep­ing guardian of every oth­er right that free men prize; it is the most dan­ger­ous foe of tyran­ny.” (Col­liers, 28 Decem­ber 1935.)

Bin­go! That’s an obscure one. For­give him for vast­ly exag­ger­at­ing Churchill’s alco­hol intake. (WSC’s “six whisky sodas” were described by his pri­vate sec­re­tary as “scotch-fla­vored mouth­wash.”

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Frederick Lindemann: Churchill’s Eminence Grise?

Frederick Lindemann: Churchill’s Eminence Grise?

Revi­sion­ist His­to­ry, Sea­son 2, Episode 5, “The Prime Min­is­ter and the Prof [ Fred­er­ick Lin­de­mann ],” pod­cast by Mal­colm Gladwell.

A pop­u­lar week­ly half hour pod­cast, Revi­sion­ist His­to­ry takes aim at shib­bo­leths, real and imag­ined. This episode is Churchill’s turn in the barrel.

Scientific Nemesis

The vil­lain, aside from Sir Win­ston, is his sci­en­tif­ic advis­er, Fred­er­ick Lin­de­mann,  lat­er Lord Cher­well, aka “The Prof.” You’ve prob­a­bly nev­er heard of him, says nar­ra­tor Mal­colm Glad­well. You should have. It was Lin­de­mann who made Churchill bomb inno­cent Ger­man civil­ians and starve the Bengalis.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the pro­gram begins with an ad for its spon­sor, Chanel Per­fume.…

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