Tag: Gandhi

Magnanimity
Kampala, 1907: Colonial Undersecretary Churchill and King Daudi Chewa II watching a Bugandan war dance. (Wikimedia Commons)
Winston Churchill, Magnanimity and the “Feeble-Minded,” Part 2

Winston Churchill, Magnanimity and the “Feeble-Minded,” Part 2

Comments 1 Comment

Con­tin­ued from Part 1…

Youthful discretions

Churchill was born into a world in which vir­tu­al­ly all Britons, from the Sov­er­eign to a Covent Gar­den gro­cer, believed in their moral supe­ri­or­i­ty. They preached it to their chil­dren. All learned that the red por­tions of the map showed where Bri­tan­nic civ­i­liza­tion had tamed sav­agery and cured pan­demics. Churchill’s asser­tions, espe­cial­ly as a young man, were often in line with this. And yet he con­sis­tent­ly dis­played this odd streak of mag­na­nim­i­ty and lib­er­tar­i­an impulse.

It was Churchill, the aris­to­crat­ic Vic­to­ri­an, who argued that Dervish ene­my in Sudan had a “claim beyond the grave…no less good than that which any of our coun­try­men could make.”…

Read More Read More

petition
Winston Churchill High School. May it long continue to produce civic minded young people as befits a distinguished name.
Petition Response to Churchill High School: Please Keep Your Name

Petition Response to Churchill High School: Please Keep Your Name

Comments 3 Comments

This is a reply to a July peti­tion to rename Win­ston Churchill High School, Bethes­da, Mary­land. Found­ed in 1964 as Potomac High School, its name was changed the fol­low­ing year to mark Sir Winston’s pass­ing. It is a dis­tin­guished school whose alum­ni include two sons of the late Jack Kemp, both of whom pur­sued their famous father’s sport. Jef­frey Allan Kemp (’77) was an NFL quar­ter­back; his broth­er Jim­my Kemp (’89) played in the CFL and is pres­i­dent of the Jack Kemp Foun­da­tion. State Sen­a­tor Cheryl Kagan (’79) serves in the Mary­land leg­is­la­ture.…

Read More Read More

rascals
Officers in the Inter-Regimental Polo Tournament at Meerut, 1899. Churchill is standing second from right. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
“Rascals, Rogues and Freebooters”: Churchill and India

“Rascals, Rogues and Freebooters”: Churchill and India

Comments 47 Comments
“Rascals, Rogues and Freebooters”

“Pow­er will go to the hands of ras­cals, rogues, free­boot­ers; all Indi­an lead­ers will be of low cal­i­bre & men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and sil­ly hearts. They will fight amongst them­selves for pow­er and India will be lost in polit­i­cal squabbles.”

The state­ment above is attrib­uted to Churchill. I can­not find it, as a speech or in a book. Although it is wide­ly and increas­ing­ly quot­ed in the Indi­an press and, giv­en what is hap­pen­ing, he seems to have been prophet­ic! —K.P., India

This post has the dis­tinc­tion of engen­der­ing the most com­ment among the 500 on my web­site.…

Read More Read More

Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

Comments 0 Comments

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.”…

Read More Read More

legacy
Presentation of Churchill’s honorary citizenship, 9 April 1963. L-R: Acting Secretary of State George Ball, Lady Ormsby Gore, British Ambassador Sir David Ormsby Gore, Winston Churchill (grandson), Naval Aide Tazewell Shepard, President Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Randolph Churchill. Photo by Cecil Stoughton.
A Fresh Look at the Churchills and Kennedys by Thomas Maier

A Fresh Look at the Churchills and Kennedys by Thomas Maier

Comments 0 Comments

When Lions Roar: The Churchills and the Kennedys, by Thomas Maier. New York: Crown Pub­lish­ers, 784 pages, $30, Kin­dle Edi­tion $11.99. Writ­ten for The Churchillian, Spring 2015.

The most touch­ing and durable vision left by Mr. Maier comes toward the end of this long book: the famous White House cer­e­mo­ny in April 1963, as Pres­i­dent Kennedy presents Sir Win­ston Churchill (in absen­tia) with Hon­orary Amer­i­can Citizenship—while from an upstairs win­dow his stroke-silenced father, Joseph P. Kennedy, watch­es close­ly, with heav­en knows what reflections:

What­ev­er thoughts raced through the mind of Joe Kennedy—the ran­cor of the past, the lost oppor­tu­ni­ties of his own polit­i­cal goals, and the trag­ic for­got­ten dreams he had once had for his old­est son, could not be expressed.…

Read More Read More

drift
“I didn’t say that. I wish I had.” —WSC in old age. Above: Drifting into Trinidad, March 1961. Churchill, 87, visits the Governor’s residence, Port of Spain, during a cruise aboard the Onassis yacht Christina. Lower right: Dr. Eric Williams, who in August 1962 became the first prime minister of independent Trinidad and Tobago. (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchillian (or Yogi Berra) Drift: How Quotations are Invented

Churchillian (or Yogi Berra) Drift: How Quotations are Invented

Comments 4 Comments
Drift it is….

Churchillian Drift is just the tick­et. I have been look­ing for a term to describe the numer­ous pot­ted, inac­cu­rate Churchill quotes. “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth puts its trousers on.” That is big right now on Twit­ter. “Suc­cess is not final, fail­ure is not fatal: it is the courage to con­tin­ue that counts.” Every­body uses that one repeatedly.

“If you’e going through hell, keep going.” No one knows who said that, but it wasn’t Churchill. Then there is: “If I were your hus­band, I’d drink it.”…

Read More Read More

Churchill’s “Infallibility”: Myth on Myth

Churchill’s “Infallibility”: Myth on Myth

Comments 10 Comments

Mr. Daniel Knowles (“Time to scotch the myth of Win­ston Churchill’s infal­li­bil­i­ty,” (orig­i­nal­ly blogged on the Dai­ly Tele­graph but since pulled from all the web­sites where it appeared), wrote that the “nation­al myth” of World War II and Churchill “is being used in an argu­ment about the future of the House of Lords.”

Mr. Knowles quot­ed Lib­er­al Par­ty leader Nick Clegg, who cit­ed Churchill’s 1910 hope that the Lords “would be fair to all par­ties.” Sir Winston’s grand­son, Sir Nicholas Soames MP, replied that Churchill “dropped those views and had great rev­er­ence and respect for the insti­tu­tion of the House of Lords.”…

Read More Read More

Churchill as Racist: A Hard Sell

Churchill as Racist: A Hard Sell

Comments 2 Comments

Racist still? In “To See Humans’ Progress, Zoom Out”  (The New York Times, 26 Feb­ru­ary 2012), Pro­fes­sor Steven Pinker asserts that for all their faults, edu­cat­ed peo­ple today are get­ting better:

Ideals that today’s edu­cat­ed peo­ple take for grant­ed — equal rights, free speech, and the pri­ma­cy of human life over tra­di­tion, trib­al loy­al­ty and intu­itions about puri­ty — are rad­i­cal breaks with the sen­si­bil­i­ties of the past. These too are gifts of a widen­ing appli­ca­tion of reason.

Fair enough, but to con­trast what edu­cat­ed peo­ple were like in the bad old days, Prof.…

Read More Read More

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

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
Links on this page may earn commissions.