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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Praise for “Avoidable War”

Praise for “Avoidable War”

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Churchill and the Avoid­able War will cost you the price of a cup of cof­fee. You can read it in a cou­ple of nights.  You may then  decide if Churchill was right (or wrong) that World War II could have been pre­vent­ed. Click on “Buy Now” under the book image at right on this page.

Here is an excel­lent sur­vey of the key “what if” junc­tures where his­to­ry could have tak­en a dif­fer­ent turn. What I like about it espe­cial­ly is that it con­sci­en­tious­ly steers away from any defin­i­tive pro­nounce­ments about one zig or zag mak­ing all the dif­fer­ence in pre­vent­ing World War II.…

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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

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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.”…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

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