Tag: Manfred Weidhorn

war books
“I asked him what he had thought when the 21st Lancers had gone headlong into a gully filled with quite unexpected and extremely bad-tempered Dervishes. He said, ‘It was very stimulating, but I did think: Suppose there is a spoil-sport in the hole with a machine gun?'” —Anthony Montague Browne. The Battle of Omdurman, 2 September 1898. Oil on canvas by William Barnes Wollen, 1857-1936. (Walker Art Gallery, Wikimedia Commons)
Winston S. Churchill’s Three Best War Books (Excerpt)

Winston S. Churchill’s Three Best War Books (Excerpt)

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“Three Out­stand­ing War Books” is Excerpt­ed from an essay for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. Why set­tle for the excerpt when you can read the whole thing full-strength? Click here.

Bet­ter yet, join 60,000 read­ers of Hills­dale essays by the world’s best Churchill his­to­ri­ans by sub­scrib­ing. You will receive reg­u­lar notices (“Week­ly Win­stons”) of new arti­cles as pub­lished. Sim­ply vis­it https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/, scroll to bot­tom, and fill in your email in the box enti­tled “Stay in touch with us.” (Your email remains strict­ly pri­vate and is nev­er sold to pur­vey­ors, sales­per­sons, auc­tion hous­es, or Things that go Bump in the Night.)…

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Joan
His words about Joan comprise he rarest spin-off from Churchill’s “History of the English-Speaking Peoples.” (Photo courtesy Marc Kuritz, and the Churchill Book Collector)
Churchill on Joan of Arc: Joan as an Agent of Brexit? Maybe not…

Churchill on Joan of Arc: Joan as an Agent of Brexit? Maybe not…

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Excerpt­ed from “Angel of Deliv­er­ance: Churchill’s Trib­utes to Joan of Arc,” pub­lished by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the com­plete arti­cle with end­notes and added illus­tra­tions, click here.

“Her gleaming, mystic figure…”

Churchill waxed elo­quent on Joan of Arc in 1938. His words would like­ly not pass with today’s min­ders of Polit­i­cal Correctness:

We see her gleam­ing, mys­tic fig­ure in the midst of the pikes and arrows, and it need­ed not her mar­tyr­dom to win her can­on­iza­tion as a saint not only from the Pope but from the mod­ern world.…

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fiction
This one has the distinction of muffing every quote on the cover: five out of five, with one narrow miss. A new record?
Churchillian Fiction Continues to Roll off the Presses

Churchillian Fiction Continues to Roll off the Presses

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Churchill quotes in the realm of fic­tion are a well-known fea­ture of the pop­u­lar cul­ture. So good an apho­rist was Churchill that even posthu­mous­ly, he con­tin­ues to “man­u­fac­ture” quote fic­tion. Some­times it’s the work of an obscure fig­ure, pinned on Churchill to make it more interesting.

The schol­ar Man­fred Wei­d­horn has an expla­na­tion for what we call Churchillian (or Yogi Berra) Drift: “You do not find your­self the tar­get of Churchillian Drift unless, like Churchill, you are already a fine apho­rist. Part of the rea­son it’s so easy to mis­at­tribute bril­liant say­ings to great apho­rists is that they have already coined so many bril­liant say­ings themselves.”…

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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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Hour
The Prime Minister at work, with secretary Elizabeth Layton (who actually didn’t join Churchill until 1941, but nicely played by Lily James). (Focus Features)
“Then out spake brave Horatius…” A Review of “Darkest Hour”

“Then out spake brave Horatius…” A Review of “Darkest Hour”

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This review was first pub­lished by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For remarks on Dark­est Hour by Hills­dale Pres­i­dent Lar­ry Arnn, and excerpts from Gary Oldman’s appear­ance at the Col­lege, click here.

Hour of Trial, and Triumph

Dark­est Hour, a film by Focus Fea­tures, direct­ed by Joe Wright, star­ring Gary Old­man as Win­ston Churchill, and Kristin Scott Thomas as Clemen­tine Churchill, 2hrs 5 min, Decem­ber 2017. 

Then out spake brave Hor­atius,
The Cap­tain of the gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than fac­ing fear­ful odds
For the ash­es of his fathers
And the tem­ples of his gods…”
—Thomas Babing­ton Macaulay

 I final­ly saw Dark­est Hour on Feb­ru­ary 16th.…

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Avoidable War
Reviews of “Churchill and the Avoidable War”

Reviews of “Churchill and the Avoidable War”

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"I’ve touched on this before: if Hitler had been assassinated in 1937, he would have gone down in history as one of the greatest Germans. If assassinated in late 1941, before the tide began to turn, he would have gone down among Germans as a military genius. Horrible as it is to say or contemplate, it was necessary for him to stay around to the bitter end so that Germans could see what fools he made of them." —Manfred Weidhorn

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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

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
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