Tag: Alfred Duff Cooper

Cooke
It is sobering to reflect that British deaths from the Coronavirus only recently surpassed those on the first day of the Somme battle. Above: the road to Pozières, 1 August 1916, looking toward Contalmaison, which was being shelled. Australian troops from the I Anzac Corps passed along this route to the fighting at Pozières and Mouquet Farm between July and September 1916. (Australian War Memorial, Crown copyright expired, public domain)
Alistair Cooke: Why didn’t They Listen to Churchill?

Alistair Cooke: Why didn’t They Listen to Churchill?

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Alis­tair Cooke addressed this ques­tion over thir­ty years ago. I’ve quot­ed his words repeat­ed­ly over the years. A recent com­ment (reprised below), encour­aged this revi­sion from 2011. Mr. Cooke’s full speech is avail­able by email. RML

Back in the 1930s, who all denounced and crit­i­cized Churchill for his beliefs in the rad­i­cal Nazi Ger­many? Who specif­i­cal­ly mocked him? Obvi­ous­ly Churchill was right about Hitler and his plans but who in the polit­i­cal, intel­lec­tu­al, or enter­tain­ment are­nas vil­i­fied him? —A.H.

The answer to your ques­tion, I think, is “just about every­body,” from the Roy­al Fam­i­ly to ordi­nary cit­i­zens, most of the media, his own par­ty, the Labour and Lib­er­al par­ties, and cer­tain­ly most intel­lec­tu­als and enter­tain­ment personalities.…

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nicknames
“Make Britain Great Again”? Attacking the opposition on behalf of the Tory candidate Anthony Fell (seated), Hammersmith, London, 23 February 1949. Labour won the safe seat, but by under five points, ominous in a usually reliable constituency. Sir Anthony eventually sat for Yarmouth, 1958-83. (Crown copyright expired, public domain)
Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

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Spo­rad­i­cal­ly, pun­dits com­pare Don­ald Trump with Win­ston Churchill. There’s even a book com­ing out on the sub­ject. I dep­re­cate all this by instinct and will avoid that book like the Coro­n­avirus. Sur­face sim­i­lar­i­ties may exist: both said or say main­ly what they thought or think, unfil­tered by polls (and some­times good advice). But Churchill’s lan­guage and thought were on a high­er plane. Still, when a friend said that Churchill nev­er stooped to deri­sive nick­names like Trump, I had to disagree.

Whether invent­ed by the Pres­i­dent or his scriptwrit­ers, some of Trump’s nick­names were very effec­tive.…

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Cooper
Diana (in the driver’s seat as usual) and Duff Cooper, who preferred American cars and drove the best of them, in this case a UK-market 1937 Packard. So I can almost forgive them for misfolding the top and using it for a pooch-perch.
“Darling Monster”: Diana Cooper and Her Remembrances of Churchill

“Darling Monster”: Diana Cooper and Her Remembrances of Churchill

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Dar­ling Mon­ster: The Let­ters of Lady Diana Coop­er to her Son John Julius Nor­wich 1939-1952, Chat­to & Win­dus, 2013, 520pp.

Lady Diana Duff Coop­er had a pen­e­trat­ing mind and bril­liant pen, capa­ble of cap­tur­ing a time when women con­sid­ered the world laden with oppor­tu­ni­ty for fulfillment.

She proved this with her famous sev­en-year per­for­mance in Max Rein­hardt’s “The Mir­a­cle.” Her “Win­ston and Clemen­tine,” first pub­lished in The Atlantic just after Sir Winston’s death, was as fine a trib­ute to the Churchill mar­riage as we are like­ly to encounter.Her col­lab­o­ra­tion with her husband’s ambas­sador­ship to France was notable.…

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Roberts
Admiring but not uncritical, Roberts’ book is a masterpiece. To paraphrase Simon Schama, it is a Churchilliad, and Andrew Roberts is its Bard. (Cartoon by David Low on WSC’s 80th birthday.)
“No Cutlet Uncooked”: Andrew Roberts’ Superb Churchill Biography

“No Cutlet Uncooked”: Andrew Roberts’ Superb Churchill Biography

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Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walk­ing with Des­tiny. New York, Viking, 2018, 1152 pages, $40, Ama­zon $25.47, Kin­dle $17.99. Also pub­lished by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For Hills­dale reviews of Churchill works since 2014, click here. For a list of and notes on books about Churchill from 1905 cur­rent­ly through 1995, vis­it Hillsdale’s anno­tat­ed bibliography.

“No Cutlet Uncooked”

He lies at Bladon in Eng­lish earth, “which in his finest hour he held invi­o­late.” He would enjoy the con­tro­ver­sy he still stirs today, in media he nev­er dreamed of. He would rev­el in the assaults of his detrac­tors, the ripostes of his defend­ers.…

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Charmley
One of my favorites: Offered a light by a Frenchman at Cherbourg, 24 July 1944.
“Churchill: The End of Glory” by John Charmley

“Churchill: The End of Glory” by John Charmley

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Q: I have just been giv­en a copy of Churchill: The End of Glo­ry, A Polit­i­cal Biog­ra­phy by John Charm­ley (1993) and am oblig­ed to say that it has the most con­fused index I have ever come across.  It may be idle schol­ar­ship on my part but when I open a book that is new to me the first thing that I do is look through the index to see if it con­tains mat­ters that I con­sid­er it should and the next thing I check is the bib­li­og­ra­phy.  I looked for Sin­ga­pore and its British com­man­der, Lieu­tenant-Gen­er­al Arthur Ernest Per­ci­val but could not find any mentions. …

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Clementine
“Whenever I saw him and his wife together in country houses, pompous or bohemian, they appeared a shining epitome of successful marriage.” On WSC’s 71st birthday, 30 November 1945. (Mary Soames)
Lady Diana Cooper on Winston and Clementine Churchill

Lady Diana Cooper on Winston and Clementine Churchill

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"Death places his icy democratic hand on kings, heroes, and paupers, and in 1965 the free world and the enslaved registered with mourning or contempt the passing of Winston Churchill. Stones were graven, elegies voiced from platforms and pulpits, the muffled drums rolled, the arms were reversed, the hatchments put up, the Last Post sounded. The expressed sympathy for the widow, but said little about his married life, because it was too happy to be heard of." —Lady Diana Duff Cooper

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Belloc
“This trench is wrong. It doesn’t agree with my map.” Belloc at the Front, WW1. (Cartoon by Leonard Ravenhill in Punch, 27 June 1917.)
“Incandescent Brilliance:” Churchill and Hilaire Belloc

“Incandescent Brilliance:” Churchill and Hilaire Belloc

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“To Bel­loc this gen­er­a­tion owes big glimpses of the Home­r­ic spir­it. His mis­sion was to flay alive the hum­bugs and hyp­ocrites and the pedants and to chant robust folk-songs to a rous­ing oblig­a­to of clink­ing flagons….” He lat­er con­clud­ed that Lib­er­al reforms mere­ly offered the “prop­erty­less work­er per­pet­u­al security…in exchange for the sur­ren­der of polit­i­cal freedom.” 

Excerpt­ed and con­densed from “Great Con­tem­po­raries: Hilaire Bel­loc,” for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the full arti­cle click here.

_______________

Joseph Hilaire Pierre Belloc

(1870-1953)—writer, sailor, poet, friend of Churchill—helped fuel Churchill’s pas­sion for the sur­vival of free gov­ern­ment.…

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Fateful Questions: World War II Microcosm (2)

Fateful Questions: World War II Microcosm (2)

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Fateful Questions

Fate­ful Ques­tions, Sep­tem­ber 1943-April 1944, nine­teenth of a pro­ject­ed twen­ty-three doc­u­ment vol­umes in the offi­cial biog­ra­phy, Win­ston S. Churchill, is reviewed by his­to­ri­an Andrew Roberts in Com­men­tary. 

These vol­umes com­prise “every impor­tant doc­u­ment of any kind that con­cerns Churchill.” The present vol­ume sets the size record. Fate­ful Ques­tions is 2,752 pages long, rep­re­sent­ing an aver­age of more than eleven pages per day. Yet at $60, it is a tremen­dous bar­gain. Order your copy from the Hills­dale Col­lege Book­store.

Here is an excerpt from my account, “Fresh His­to­ry,” which can be read in its entire­ty at the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project.…

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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

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