Churchill: The Prophetic Statesman

by James C. Humes, John Spencer-Churchill (Foreword by)

Overview

"Perhaps it is a cliche that a politician thinks of the next election and a statesman of the next generation, yet my grandfather found merit in the maxim. He had known leaders he esteemed as the greatest of statesmen…Churchill, however, was the leader he admired above all…In hundreds of studies of Churchill, no one else, remarkably enough, has focused on Churchill's predictions and prophecies. James Humes has produced a book that is unique as well as necessary for an understanding of statesmanship." —David Eisenhower, author and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781596983120
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	11/12/2012
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	300
File size:	408 KB

About the Author

James C. Humes is an author and former presidential speechwriter. Humes, along with William Safire and Pat Buchanan, is credited for authoring the text on the Apollo 11 lunar plaque.

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Introduction: Churchill as Prophet 1

Part I World War I

Chapter 1 Prescient as a Schoolboy 15

Chapter 2 Warnings from a Young MP 21

Chapter 3 A Fateful Memorandum 29

Chapter 4 Opposing the Sanguine Majority 35

Part II Modern Military Weapons

Chapter 5 Predicting the Age of Air Power 43

Chapter 6 Churchill Develops the Tank 49

Chapter 7 Foreseeing the Invention of Nuclear Weapons 53

Chapter 8 The Modern Oil Crisis Predicted 61

Part III Domestic Affairs

Chapter 9 A Balance between Capitalism and Socialism 67

Chapter 10 Unmasking Socialism 73

Chapter 11 Postwar Technophobia 79

Part IV The Age of Totalitarian Ideologies

Chapter 12 An Ominous Novel 87

Chapter 13 Misgivings about the Middle East 93

Chapter 14 "It Is Not a Creed; It Is a Pestilence" 99

Chapter 15 A Latter-Day Moses 103

Chapter 16 The Indian Genocide Predicted 107

Part V World War II

Chapter 17 The Nazi Menace 117

Chapter 18 The Nazi-Soviet Pact Stuns the World 135

Chapter 19 Churchill Is Certain of Victory 145

Chapter 20 A Rare Miss 151

Chapter 21 Dreams of Defeat 161

Part VI The Cold War

Chapter 22 The Iron Curtain Warning 173

Chapter 23 Bloodshed Averted 185

Chapter 24 The "United States of Europe" 191

Chapter 25 The End of the Cold War 199

Chapter 26 "Parley at the Summit" 203

Chapter 27 Vindicated Misgivings 209

Chapter 28 Summing Up 215

Acknowledgments 219

Notes 221

Index 225

Editorial Reviews

‘What if?’ is the great parlor game of all historians, professional and amateur. In Churchill: The Prophetic Statesman, James Humes gives us a stunning but overlooked version of conjectural history. Humes outlines dozens of Churchill’s own spectacular prophecies, revealing him to be a Nostradamus of the political and military events of the twentieth century.”

Michael Keane

Some have written that the two giants of the last century were Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan. As the latter’s son, I might agree, but I will leave that assessment to historians…Chroniclers will surely conclude that both men toppled totalitarian tyrannies with eloquence and courage. The two men had different styles, but each played a decisive role in the victory of freedom over dictatorship…[Churchill’s] sound judgment, along with his courage, made him one of history’s greatest leaders. There are important lessons here for our own troubled times.”

New York Times bestselling author Michael Reagan

Perhaps it is a cliché that a politician thinks of the next election and a statesman of the next generation, yet my grandfather found merit in the maxim. He had known leaders he esteemed as the greatest of statesmen…Churchill, however, was the leader he admired above all…In hundreds of studies of Churchill, no one else, remarkably enough, has focused on Churchill’s predictions and prophecies. James Humes has produced a book that is unique as well as necessary for an understanding of statesmanship.”

New York Times bestselling author and senior David Eisenhower