Umberto Eco Archives - Richard M. Langworth

Lectures at Sea (1): Churchill and the Myths of D-Day

24 June 2019 Comments 0 Comments

“Churchill and the Myths of D-Day is excerpted from a lecture on the 2019 Hillsdale College Round-Britain cruise. Hillsdale cruises with “lectures at sea” are an annual event, usually occurring in May or June. For information on the 2020 cruise to Jerusalem and Athens, click here.

I’m here to talk about Winston Churchill. I know this audience knows who he was! Did you know a survey of British schoolchildren reveals that one in five think he was a fictional character? And better than half think Sherlock Holmes was a real person?

My book is about the non-fictional Churchill.…

Current Churchill Contentions: “The Invasion of the Idiots”

17 May 2019 Comments 5 Comments

“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 1932

Eighty-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.”…