Field Marshal Alanbrooke: "... And the wonderful thing is that 3/4 of the population of the world imagine that Churchill is one of the Strategists of History, a second Marlborough, and the other 1/4 have no idea what a public menace he is and has been throughout this war! It is far better that the world should never know, and never suspect the feet of clay of this otherwise superhuman being. Without him England was lost for a certainty, with him England has been on the verge of disaster time and again ... Never have I admired and despised a man simultaneously to the same extent. Never have such opposite extremes been combined in the same human being."
A New Biography of Churchill
31–40 of 40 posts
Re: A New Biography of Churchill
#32While we can praise Churchill for many things, we should never gloss over the fact that he favored eugenics and was deeply racist [1]. For instance, he's quoted as saying "I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise…
It's quite odd to pick this angle, Gandhi despite being on the fighting end of the Churchill had his own racial slurs against Africans.
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Re: A New Biography of Churchill
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of the "liberal progressives" pre ww2 where in favour of sterilising certain elements of the population until that whole "hitler thing" happened. In the USA it was the conservative republicans that opposed it.
I'm not sure I'd describe the Carnegie Institution, or Rockefeller Foundation, who funded a lot of the eugenics research with the end in mind as notably liberal progressive. Nor could the Republicans Coolidge ("Nordics deteriorate when mixed with other races") and Hoover, who were both heavily in favour, be described as progressive liberals. Roosevelt was in favour too, of course. It was a movement independent of pol…
HG Wells and a lot of the left leaning British intellectuals did and Sweden only stopped sterilising in the 1970's
Re: A New Biography of Churchill
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Churchill was pretty brutal. "In 1943, up to four million Bengalis starved to death when Churchill diverted food to British soldiers and countries such as Greece while a deadly famine swept through Bengal." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/winst... "Thousands were sent to British run concentration camps during the Boer wars. Churchill summed up his time in South Africa by saying “it was great fu…
In 1943, up to four million Bengalis starved to death when the Indian states set trade restrictions with Bengal. That was one of the policies that was outside the Raj, as was the resulting profiteering. They did so after the fall of Burma at a time when Bengal was suffering an unprecedented series of natural disasters. Facts can be inconvenient sometimes.
> Indian states set trade restrictions with Bengal. That was one of the policies that was outside the Raj
You mean the British administration resorted to scorched earth denial policies fearing the Japanese advance. It was literally Raj policy.
> Bengal was suffering an unprecedented series of natural disasters.
And the British response to the natural disasters was continuing to redirect supplies to military and refusing to allow shipping of humanitarian aid. Churchill's response to news of the famine was ask why Gandhi hadn't died yet.
> Facts can be inconvenient sometimes.
Like the fact that India repeatedly suffered famines under British rule but there hasn't been a famine since Independence?
Re: A New Biography of Churchill
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
In 1943, up to four million Bengalis starved to death when the Indian states set trade restrictions with Bengal. That was one of the policies that was outside the Raj, as was the resulting profiteering. They did so after the fall of Burma at a time when Bengal was suffering an unprecedented series of natural disasters. Facts can be inconvenient sometimes.
> Indian states set trade restrictions with Bengal. That was one of the policies that was outside the Raj You mean the British administration resorted to scorched earth denial policies fearing the Japanese advance. It was literally Raj policy. > Bengal was suffering an unprecedented series of natural disasters. And the British response to the natural disasters was continuing to redirect supplies to military and refus…
India of British rule is now three countries, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Combine the three and there have been numerous famines since independence. Course that doesn't fit your agenda.
Re: A New Biography of Churchill
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Indian states set trade restrictions with Bengal. That was one of the policies that was outside the Raj You mean the British administration resorted to scorched earth denial policies fearing the Japanese advance. It was literally Raj policy. > Bengal was suffering an unprecedented series of natural disasters. And the British response to the natural disasters was continuing to redirect supplies to military and refus…
India of British rule is now three countries, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Combine the three and there have been numerous famines since independence. Course that doesn't fit your agenda.
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Re: A New Biography of Churchill
#37While we can praise Churchill for many things, we should never gloss over the fact that he favored eugenics and was deeply racist [1]. For instance, he's quoted as saying "I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise…
you’re either into eugenics or dysgenics. i await your reasoning on why improving the human race is a knock.
Re: A New Biography of Churchill
#38While we can praise Churchill for many things, we should never gloss over the fact that he favored eugenics and was deeply racist [1]. For instance, he's quoted as saying "I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise…
FYI Nikola Tesla had similar views on eugenics as well.
Re: A New Biography of Churchill
#39Churchill & The secret service is a better biography than most of the actual biography books. It explains the creation of a modern secret service used to gather intelligence on foreign and local targets including competing political parties.
This played a major role on Churchill's intuition and ascend, and failed miserably when he diverted resources to fight local political parties thus not predicting the start date of two world wars.
After the wars had started, he did divert resources to handle things succesfully.
TLDR: Churchill was his secret services. Succesful when not adapted to his own personal biases
https://www.amazon.com/Churchill-Secret-Service-David-Staffo...
Re: A New Biography of Churchill
#40Winston Churchill was half American; his mother was from Brooklyn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Randolph_Churchill#Early_...