Back to Navigation

Winston Churchill | Munk Debates

SEASON TWO - EPISODE #74

Winston Churchill

Be it resolved, it's time we cancelled Winston Churchill.

Guests
Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Michael F. Bishop
Apple spotify iHeartRadio Google

Listen

About this episode

In 2002, Winston Churchill was voted the greatest Briton who ever lived, beating Darwin, Shakespeare and Elizabeth I to take the top spot. Just 18 years later, a statue of the former British Prime Minister was defaced in London, spray painted with the words “Churchill was a racist”. As the west reckons with the misdeeds of history’s heroes, Winston Churchill’s long-time critics are eager to shine a spotlight on his dark past. To them, he was a racist, imperialist warmonger whose bombastic speeches during World War II have overshadowed the atrocities he oversaw during his decades in government: from using excessive force to crush dissent at home, to carpet bombing German cities during the war, to his role in the 1943 Bengal famine that killed 3 million Indians, his disregard for the suffering of others and penchant for violence has left a dangerous legacy. An advocate for British colonial rule, a well-known racist, and an admirer of Mussolini did not deserve praise when he was alive, and he certainly does not now.

Churchill’s supporters, meanwhile, regard him as a wartime hero whose bravery and leadership during Britain’s darkest hour saved the country and western civilization. Churchill’s powerful rhetoric inspired his countrymen to fight the Nazis when the rest of Europe had surrendered to Hitler’s army. Domestically, he reformed Britain’s prison system, introduced a minimum wage and improved social welfare systems. Like every hero in history, they argue, Churchill made mistakes. But his extraordinary leadership helped save western democracy, proving himself to be worthy of every accolade, every statue, and every memorial dedicated in his memory.

Share:

Guests

Geoffrey Wheatcroft

“The real Churchill was politically fickle and financially rapacious. He never properly understood modern war, and before 1940 he was regarded by many people with dislike and especially distrust."

Geoffrey Wheatcroft

“The real Churchill was politically fickle and financially rapacious. He never properly understood modern war, and before 1940 he was regarded by many people with dislike and especially distrust."

Geoffrey Wheatcroft is a veteran English journalist and author. He studied history educated at Oxford, before spending several years in publishing. In 1975, he joined the weekly Spectator where he was Literary Editor as well as columnist and reporter, and where, he says, he learned how to write.  

He left to write his first book, The Randlords, published in 1985. Mr Wheatcroft was later "Londoner's Diary" Editor of the Evening Standard but for many years now he has been a freelance journalist and independent author, writing for London papers but even more American, among others the New York Times, the New Republic and the New York Review of Books. He has also been a frequent lecturer at the British Studies Seminar at the University of Texas.  

In 1996 he published The Controversy of Zion: Jewish Nationalism, The Jewish State, And The Unresolved Jewish Dilemma, which won an American National Jewish Book Award. He published Le Tour: A History of the Tour de France for the centenary of the race in 2003. The Strange Death of Tory England was followed by his philippic Yo, Blair!, and in 2021 Churchill’s Shadow, which the New York Times chose as one of its 100 Significant Books of the Year.

Michael F. Bishop

“Winston Churchill was the greatest statesman of the 20th century. A profoundly admirable figure, a brilliant writer, a great and inspiring military leader, and someone whose zest for life still inspires many.”

Michael F. Bishop

“Winston Churchill was the greatest statesman of the 20th century. A profoundly admirable figure, a brilliant writer, a great and inspiring military leader, and someone whose zest for life still inspires many.”

Michael F. Bishop is a writer and historian, and the former director of the National Churchill Library and Center at the George Washington University and executive director of the International Churchill Society.  In those roles, he hosted many distinguished leaders in the fields of politics, the military, journalism, and history to discuss the continuing relevance of Churchill's legacy for live and television audiences.  He also organized the successful 34th and 35th International Churchill Conferences in New York and Williamsburg, Virginia.  He worked closely with the cast and producers of Darkest Hour, the Oscar-winning film about the perilous first weeks of Churchill's premiership.   

His reviews and articles on Churchill, Lincoln, World War I, and British and Irish politics and history appear in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, National Review, and elsewhere.  He is the ghostwriter of a series of historical works, the most recent of which was a New York Times bestseller.
 

Comments

Previous Episode

Julia Galef Dialogue