Lecture: “Current Contentions,” Nashville 2017

Reproduced in six parts beginning here.

Winston Churchill was here on his 1932 lecture tour. He especially liked Nashville, Atlanta, New Orleans, Cincinnati, and Ann Arbor—the latter not too far from Hillsdale College. “And who would miss Chattanooga,” he wrote, “lying in its cup between the Blue Ridge and Lookout Mountain?”

East, west, north, and south he rode the rails, “living all day on my back in a railway compartment and addressing in the evening large audiences.” His theme was Anglo-American unity. He concluded, rather startlingly for someone with his background: “It is the hardest work I have had in my life.”

Aside from making money—something he was always short of in those days—he was keen to visit battlefields of the Civil War, which he would describe in his History of the English-Speaking Peoples. At Murfreesboro, he observed “the greatest bravery by both sides.” The Federals lost 9000, Braxton Bragg’s Confederates over 10,000. “The Federal hold on Nashville was unshaken, and Bragg withdrew to cover Chattanooga. Murfreesboro gave the impression of a drawn battle….”

Lecture events, 2007-2010

10 May 2010: Toronto. Annual Dinner, Churchill Society of Canada.

11 September 2009: Churchill for Today: “Shall We All Commit Suicide?” and Churchill’s other futurist essays: panelist and moderator.

7 May 2009 lecture: English-Speaking Union and New England Churchillians, Union Club, Boston

3 May 2009, Detroit: Winston Churchill Society of Michigan, Dearborn Inn.

2 May 2009, Chicago:  Churchill Friends of Greater Chicago, Fairmont Hotel, 6PM.

30 November 2008: “Churchill by Himself.” North Texas Churchllians, Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen, Dallas, Texas. Lecture and book signing.

30 November 2007 lecture: “Churchill and Ireland: Notable Pronouncements on Ireland, 1901-1948.” New England Churchllians, Union Club, Boston.

1999 – 2006

4 September 2006, Bradford, Vermont: “Packard’s Henry Joy: I  Wish He Were Here.” Packard Automobile Classics Joy Tour, Bradford Inn.

2003: “Leading Churchill Myths”: A cornucopia of historical false trails, exploded by trolling through the facts. Lecture and udience discussion.

2001: “Churchill’s Wisdom Calls to Us Across the Years”: For five days after September 11th we were asked: What did Churchill say in similar circumstances? What effect did it have? Is it appropriate now? Of course it is appropriate now.

1999-2000: “Churchill and the Art of the Statesman-Writer”:  How to become the highest paid  journalist of your time and win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Lecture and readings from Churchill’s books. Delivered at the Boston Athenaeum, followed by Philadelphia, 2000 and Washington, 2002.