MARLBORO MAN. PART I.

This entry opens a short sub-subsection within the Stalin subsection, centering on Winston Churchill (1874-1965). I have nicknamed him Marlboro Man, reflecting both on his Anglo-American heritage, and on his generally pro-American stance. The next two Churchillian entries have been posted already. They are Operation Unthinkable (February 26^th, 2013), and Secret History Of the Iron Curtain (March 1^st, 2011).

There is little need in recounting Churchill’s biography, except perhaps for this fairly unusual summary at the official sight of the Nobel Prize Committee (Nobelprize.org), posted on account of his recipience of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953:

The Right Honorable Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, the son of Lord Randolph Churchill and an American mother, was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst. After a brief but eventful career in the army, he became a Conservative Member of Parliament in 1900. He held high posts in both Liberal and Conservative governments during the first three decades of the century. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, a post which he had earlier held from 1911 to 1915. In May 1940, he became Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, remaining in office till 1945. He took over the premiership again in the Conservative victory of 1951 resigning in 1955. However he remained a Member of Parliament until the general election of 1964, when he did not seek reelection. Queen Elizabeth II conferred on him the dignity of Knighthood, and invested him with the insignia of the Order of the Garter in 1953. Among other countless honors and decorations he received special mention should be made of the honorary citizenship of the United States, which President Kennedy conferred on him in 1963.

Churchill’s literary career began with campaign reports: The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898) and The River War (1899), an account of the campaign in the Sudan and of the Battle of Omdurman. In 1900 he published his only novel Savrola, and, six years later, his first major work, the biography of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill. His other famous biography, the life of his great ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough, was published in four volumes between 1933 and 1938. (…Randolph Churchill; Duke of Marlborough… I wonder why he was not too eager to pursue world history on his mother’s side?..) His history of the First World War appeared in four volumes under the title The World Crisis (1923-1929); and his memoirs of the Second World War ran to six volumes (1948-1953/54). After his retirement from office, Churchill wrote a History of the English-speaking Peoples (in 4 volumes, 1956-1958). His magnificent oratory survives in a dozen volumes of speeches, among them The Unrelenting Struggle (1942), The Dawn of Liberation (1945), and Victory (1946).

Churchill, a gifted amateur painter, wrote Painting as a Pastime (1948). An autobiographical account of his youth, My Early Life, appeared in 1930.

(This is the end of Part I. Part II, consisting of my own take on Churchill, will be posted tomorrow.)