September 4, 2009

Thursday, 3 September 2009

Churchill: As good as we think?

Sir Winston Churchill’s place in the pantheon of British history is assured. Or is it?

2024 International Churchill Conference

Join us for the 41st International Churchill Conference. London | October 2024

More

The essayist Christopher Hitchens once wrote that Churchill “was not a figure in history so much as a fi

gure of history”. And it cannot be denied that Churchill stands alongside Shakespeare, Newton and Queen Victoria as a towering presence in the British story.

Today, exactly 70 years after Britain declared war against Germany, the debate still continues as to whether he was truly great. Churchill’s vast reputation rests not only on his well-documented and long life but also on his own voluminous, self-penned, memoirs.

The latest in a long line of Churchill biographers includes historian Sir Max Hastings, whose new book – Finest Years: Churchill as Warlord 1940-45 – presents a positive version of the Churchill story. But another work – Churchill: The Greatest Briton Unmasked – by the Cambridge academic Dr Nigel Knight, lays out a more critical view.

The controversy surrounding Churchill and his legacy is widespread.

Read the entire article and listen to audio here.

©BBC.CO.UK