Opinion | A new Churchill biography wrongly leans into his faults - The Washington Post - 0 views
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“Real development is not leaving things behind, as on a road,” G.K. Chesterton said, “but drawing life from them, like a root.”
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Wheatcroft seems like a single Lilliputian attempting to tie down Gulliver with a single thread. As with Jefferson, the thread will not hold. Such historical figures are more than bit players in our own morality play
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This is a historical case in which “other than that” doesn’t work. You cannot justifiably say: He was a racist — other than saving Western civilization from an endless night of racist tyranny
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And from 1940 to 1945, he stood alone, and then with the United States, to (yes) save the liberty of the world.
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From 1935 to 1940, as a failed and isolated politician, Churchill was utterly, repeatedly right about the dual threat of German aggression and British pacifism
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the main accusation against Churchill — like the main accusation against Jefferson — is racism. Did Churchill’s imperialism postulate that the Britons were among the “higher-grade races”? And did this contribute to his disdain for Indians and others? The answer to both questions is yes — with the recognition that such attitudes were not far removed from those of American imperialists in the 1890s who assumed the “White man’s burden” in the Philippines. (Theodore Roosevelt was also a firm believer in racial hierarchy.)
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The charge that he had a blind spot about India the size of a subcontinent is baked. (“I am quite satisfied with my views on India,” he said, “and I don’t want them disturbed by any bloody Indians.”)
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The charge that he maliciously caused the Bengal famine — in the sense that Joseph Stalin caused the Ukrainian famine — seems half-baked.
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To me, the charge that the author of Gallipoli and Narvik could display terrible military judgment is baked.
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My best advice is to read the book alongside Andrew Roberts’s invaluable “Churchill: Walking With Destiny” and judge for yourself.
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a revisionist biography by Geoffrey Wheatcroft titled “Churchill’s Shadow.” Wheatcroft portrays Churchill as the sum of his misjudgments and the embodiment of imperial bigotry