Hillsdale College Churchill Project Archives - Page 2 of 5

chicken — Addressing the Canadian Parliament, 30 December 1941. (Wikimedia Commons)

Churchill, Canada and the Perspective of History (Part 3)

9 December 2018 Comments 0 Comments

Perspective of History: Address to the Churchill Society of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on Sir Winston’s 144th birthday, 30 November 2018 (Part 3). We were kindly hosted at Earnscliffe by the British High Commissioner, Susan le Jeune d’Allegeershecque.

Perspective, 144 Years On

Concluded from Part 2…. “The great movements that underlie history—the development of science, industry, culture, social and political structures—are powerful, almost determinant,” wrote Charles Krauthammer.

Yet every once in a while, a single person arises without whom everything would be different. In recent times, only Churchill carries that absolutely required criterion: indispensability… Take away Churchill in 1940 [and] Hitler would have achieved what no other tyrant, not even Napoleon, had ever achieved: mastery of Europe.…

Read More Read More

Churchill, Canada and the Perspective of History (Part 2)

6 December 2018 Comments 2 Comments

History and memory: Address to the Churchill Society of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on Sir Winston’s 144th birthday, 30 November 2018 (Part 2). We were kindly hosted at Earnscliffe by the British High Commissioner, Susan le Jeune d’Allegeershecque.

Churchill and the Perspective of History 144 Years On

Continued from Part 1…. Do you want the good news or the bad news on Churchill today? The bad news is the high level of ignorance, as measured by that electronic Hyde Park Speaker’s Corner, the Internet.

Churchill’s name elicits 100 million Google hits, a colleague says, “Some are questions, many of which simply require the answer ‘No’—such as: ‘Was Churchill anti-Semitic?…

Read More Read More

Hillsdale’s Superb Churchill Biography Nears the Finish

23 October 2018 Comments 0 Comments

Biography update: The warm reactions received to this post prompted me to add the cartoon at the end. Thanks for the kind words. I am so pleased and proud to be associated with my Hillsdale colleagues in this grand enterprise. RML

“Give us the Tools….

Every student of Winston Churchill knows of Hillsdale College’s Churchill Project and the “official biography.” (The term is misleading, because nothing was ever censored.) Read more on this effort on the Project website

Sir Martin Gilbert completed the eighth and final biographic volume in 1988. But the accompanying volumes of documents (aka “Companion Volumes”) ceased in the 1990s.…

Read More Read More

Just Published! “Triumph Cars”: Tribute to a famous British marque

16 October 2018 Comments 2 Comments

A True Triumph

We are bowled over by the sheer volume of color, beauty and depth of photographs in the latest and greatest edition of Triumph Cars: The Complete Story. Largely this was the effort of my co-author Graham Robson, but I never expected such a high quality treatment by the publishers. A big, square format, 10×10 inches, it’s chock-a-block with lavish illustrations from the first spindly Triumph 10/20 of 1923 to the last, badge-engineered Triumph Acclaim of 1984. There are even appendices on Triumph-derived cars like the Bond Equipe, Amphicar, Peerless and Swallow Doretti.…

Read More Read More

Before the microphones, 1940. (Library of Congress)

AZ Quotes: A Cornucopia of Things Churchill Never Said

6 September 2018 Comments 9 Comments

Much of my labor in the Churchill Vineyard involves researching quotations “AZ.” My 650-page books and ebooks, Churchill by Himself and Churchill in His Own Words, are the largest sources of Churchill’s philosophy, maxims, reflections and ripostes accompanied by a valid source for each entry. There are 4,150 entries, but a new, expanded and revised edition is coming. It will include a much larger appendix of “Red Herrings”—oft-repeated passages he never said but constantly ascribed to him.

“Red Herrings” are part of what quotemaster Nigel Rees calls “Churchillian Drift.” (Click here for the full description.)…

Read More Read More

Movies and Churchill: Hillsdale College, Michigan, 24-28 March 2019

6 August 2018 Comments 2 Comments

Movies at Hillsdale

In 1927, Winston Churchill wrote to his wife Clementine, “I am becoming a film fan.” He installed projection equipment for movies at Chequers, the country home of British prime ministers, in 1943, and at his family home Chartwell in 1946.

“Churchill and the Movies” is the final event by Hillsdale’s Center for Constructive Alternatives in the 2018-19 academic year. It explores two movies regarded as Churchill’s favorites and two biographical movies in historical context. My lecture addresses Henry V with Laurence Olivier. We will discuss Churchill’s understanding of Shakespeare, and application of the lessons of The Bard’s plays.…

Read More Read More

Churchill +144: Perspective of History, Ottawa, 30 November 2018

3 August 2018 Comments 0 Comments

Posted by the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Ottawa.

Ottawa, Nov 30—

Richard M. Langworth CBE, spoke to the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Ottawa. The venue was Earnscliffe, the Residence of the British High Commissioner. The subject was “Winston Churchill, 144 Years On: The Perspective of History.ˮ

Langworth is a leading writers on Sir Winston. In 1968 he founded the Churchill Study Unit and its journal, Finest Hour. In 1982 he resurrected the journal from inactivity and edited it for thirty-five years. Five years ago he joined Hillsdale College (in Hillsdale, Michigan) as Senior Fellow for the Churchill Project, an endowed, permanent center of Churchill Studies in North America.…

Read More Read More

Hillsdale’s Churchill Documents: Harold Wilson, 1951

30 July 2018 Comments 0 Comments

“Two days earlier I had been a Minister of the Crown, red box and all. Now I was reduced to the position of a messenger between my wife and Winston Churchill, each of whom burst into tears on receipt of a message from the other.” —Harold Wilson

___________

The Hillsdale College Churchill Project is rapidly completing final volumes of Winston S. Churchill, the official biography. (The name is somewhat of a misnomer; no one has ever censored any material.) Suitably, all thirty-one volumes will be complete by June 2019: the 75th Anniversary of D-Day. It will be fifty-six years since Randolph Churchill and his “Young Gentlemen” including Martin Gilbert began their work.…

Read More Read More

Churchill, Truman and Poker on the Train to Fulton, March 1946

6 July 2018 Comments 3 Comments

How Harry fleeced Winston at poker, and the PM wished to be born again…

The Hillsdale College Churchill Project is closing in on finishing Winston S. Churchill, the official biography. At thirty-one volumes, it is the longest on record and will have taken fifty-six years to complete. It is an honor to be part of the team now reviewing proofs for the penultimate document (companion) volume. This runs from August 1945, after Churchill was turned out of office, through September 1951, when he was about to regain it. The last volume (1951-65) will be published next year, with suitable celebrations.…

Read More Read More

The Music Winston Churchill Loved (with audio links)

8 June 2018 Comments 0 Comments

Don Cusic, Winston Churchill’s Love of Music: Churchill Didn’t Have a Tin Ear (Nashville: Brackish Publishing, 2018), 122 pages, $21. Audio links can easily be provided online. Excerpted from a review for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. For the full review, click here.

Music by Cusic

Cusic’s text traces Churchill’s life and career, tracking every reference the author found to music and song. We range from the marches, ditties and Gilbert & Sullivan Churchill loved to the powerfully inspirational. Which lyrics are presented is purely arbitrary, but once chosen, we get every word. Churchill’s youthful encounters with the ’cello and piano are duly noted.…

Read More Read More