Tag: Cairo Conference 1921
Avaricious Imperialists or Nation Builders? The Middle East, 100 Years On
“A Century Ago, the Modern Middle East Was Born,” announced The New York Times in December. A colleague asks: “Are you not struck by how difficult (impossible?) it is to encapsulate history in an op-ed? Is that really how and when the modern Middle East was born?”
Good questions. The Times’s idea is that after World War I, avaricious imperialists moved in to enslave Turkey’s former slaves. This familiar theme will dominate through the centenary of the Cairo Conference in March 2021. It’s been around at least since 2001, when Osama bin Laden referred to 9/11 as payback for what he then called “eighty years of injustice.”…
Current Churchill Contentions: “The Invasion of the Idiots”
“Current Contentions” was delivered at Hillsdale College’s Center for Constructive Alternatives seminar on “Churchill and the Movies,” 27 March 2019. For the video, please click here.
Edited transcript: The original speech included certain subjects covered earlier and elsewhere. These are summarized below, and provided with links to the original texts. The video, which is unabridged, includes questions and answers with the audience.
Churchill’s World of 1932Eighty-seven years ago, Churchill was here in Michigan, in Detroit, Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor, on a U.S. lecture tour. 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.”…
“Churchill’s Bodyguard” Mini-series: Walter H. Thompson
The success of the movie Darkest Hour has prompted many to look up other film and video presentations of the Churchill saga. One of these is the 2005 series on Walter Thompson, Churchill’s Bodyguard, which a colleague tells me is a useful documentary. It is. All thirteen episodes are on YouTube. I watched several without complaint—rare for me.
Walter Henry Thompson…was Winston Churchill’s protection officer and detective, on and off between 1921 and 1945. They had many adventures together, and Thompson wrote four books about his experiences. The first, Guard from the Yard (1938, now very rare) involved Churchill and others whom Thompson protected.…