Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality: What He Actually Did and Said

by Richard M. Langworth

Overview

Winston Churchill, indispensable when liberty was in peril, died in 1965. Yet he is still accused of numerous sins, from alcoholism and racism to misogyny and warmongering. On the Internet, he simmers in a stew of imagined misdeeds—using poison gas, firebombing Dresden, causing the Bengal famine, and so on.

Drawing on the author's fifty years of research and writing on Churchill, this book uncovers scores of myths surrounding him—the popular and the obscure—to reveal what he really said and did about many issues. Churchill had two personas—one that thought deeply about the nature of humanity, and one that helped solve seemingly intractable problems. In his many decades in public life, he made mistakes, but his faults were well eclipsed by his virtues.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476674605
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	11/15/2017
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Richard M. Langworth founded in 1968 the Churchill Study Unit and its journal, Finest Hour, which he edited for 35 years. Since 2014 he has been Senior Fellow for the Churchill Project at Hillsdale College in Michigan. He lives in Moultonborough, New Hampshire, and Eleuthera, Bahamas.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Preface
Part 1. Youth
 1. “Chief leader of men”
 2. Jennie’s Indiscretions, Jack’s Parentage
 3. The Menace of Education
 4. What Killed Lord Randolph?
Part 2. Young Statesman
 5. Votes for Women
 6. The Sinking of the Titanic
 7. The Unpleasantness on Sidney Street
 8. “The sullen feet of marching men in Tonypandy”
 9. Ireland: “We could never have done anything without him”
Part 3. World War
10. “All his war paint”
11. The Defense of Antwerp
12. “What about the Dardanelles?”
13. Losing the Lusi
14. America and World War I
15. Chemical Warfare
Part 4. Between the World Wars
16. “Taking more out of alcohol”
17. The Bolshevik Menace
18. Trial by Jewry
19. The Trouble with Mr. Gandhi
20. Mussolini, Lawgiver and Jackal
21. Hitler as a “Great Contemporary”
Part 5. World War
22. The Voice They Heard
23. “Collar the lot”
24. Torturous Topics
25. The Bombing of Coventry
26. The Second Front Fracas
27. Mad Bomber
28. Starving the Indians
29. The Brain in Spain Was Absent from the Plane
30. The Destruction of Monte Cassino
31. What to Do About Auschwitz?
32. Feeding the Oppressed
Part 6. Postwar Years
33. Spheres of Influence
34. Nuking Moscow
35. Trouble ’n’ Strife
36. On European Union
37. The Common Touch
Appendix 1. Minor Myths, Fables and Things That Go Bump in the Night
Appendix 2. Red Herrings: Mythological Churchill Quotes
Appendix 3. The Hillsdale College Churchill Project
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

With close attention to detail and context, Langworth effectively demolishes many core myths repeatedly used to launch personal and political assaults against Churchill...the great value of the book is that it invites readers to put Churchill’s decisions and actions into the context that surrounded them. A required addition to any collection on Churchill...essential”— Choice; “this book will be consulted by every person eager to find the truth about one ‘Great Man’ of history”—The International Churchill Society; “absolutely remarkable...both the work of a lifetime and a labor of love...unreservedly recommended...should also be required reading in all Schools of Journalism”—Cercles; “Langworth has taken Churchill out of the clutches of both the worshipful and the iconoclasts, thus giving him over to the appreciative...those who can look at him, warts and all.”—Warren Kimball, Churchill & Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence; “No one knows more about Winston Churchill than Langworth, his vicar on earth. This superb book lays bare the lies, but also reveals new truths about The Greatest Englishman.”—Andrew Roberts, New-York Historical Society; “Langworth, a lifelong student of Churchill, strips away the falsehoods that belittle the personality, the career and the greatness of this giant historical figure.”—Paul Addison, University of Edinburgh.

From the Publisher