Harry V. Jaffa on Winston S. Churchill

Winston S. Churchill, Volume III, The Challenge of War: 1914-1916 By Martin Gilbert Houghton, 988 pp., $15 Winston S. Churchill, Companion Volume III, July 1914-December 1916, Parts I and II Edited by Martin Gilbert Houghton, 1,685 pp., $37.50 When Randolph Churchill died in 1968, having completed only the first two volumes of his father’s life (to 1914), the role of official biographer of the late Sir Winston Churchill passed to his research assistant, Martin Gilbert. Gilbert is a young scholar, still in his thirties, but already established as among the most distinguished of a new breed of extraordinarily well trained professional historians coming from the school of A. J. P. Taylor. Among Gilbert’s earlier works is one entitled The Appeasers (with Richard Gott), another, The Roots of Appeasement, and still another, The European Powers: 1900-1945. Gilbert is also the author of a fine series of historical atlases, and his home in Oxford is called The Map House. All this indicates a preoccupation with themes and vocations eminently Churchillian. Still, the change in tone accompanying the change in authorship is striking and profound. It was not possible for Gilbert to retain the epigraph that Randolph Churchill, borrowing from Lockhart, had chosen for his work: “He shall be his own biographer.”

Randolph Churchill had found an unusual tone in writing about his father’s childhood and early career, which involved writing about his grandparents and their circle as well. Notwithstanding the undoubted filial (and familial) piety, there was a certain amused detachment, a kind of robust enjoyment of a remarkable spectacle, free from petty partisanship in regard to issues and personalities of a distant past. Scattered through Sir Winston’s own writings as the years rolled on were certain wry observations about the younger Winston. It was the spirit of these, rather than the elaborate selfjustifications of the later years, by which Randolph seemed to be guided. Still, when the work fell from his hands, the tales of world-shattering events and cosmic quarrels were yet to be told.

HV

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Harry V. Jaffa

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Winston S. Churchill, Volume III, The Challenge of War: 1914-1916 By Martin Gilbert Houghton, 988 pp., $15 Winston S. Churchill, Companion Volume III, July 1914-December 1916, Parts I and II Edited by Martin Gilbert Houghton, 1,685 pp., $37.50 When Randolph Churchill died in 1968, having completed only the first two volumes of his father’s life (to 1914), the role of official biographer of the late Sir Winston Churchill passed to his research assistant, Martin Gilbert. Gilbert is a young scholar, still in his thirties, but already established as among the most distinguished of a new breed of extraordinarily well trained professional historians coming from the school of A. J. P. Taylor. Among Gilbert’s earlier works is one entitled The Appeasers (with Richard Gott), another, The Roots of Appeasement, and still another, The European Powers: 1900-1945. Gilbert is also the author of a fine series of historical atlases, and his home in Oxford is called The Map House. All this indicates a preoccupation with themes and vocations eminently Churchillian. Still, the change in tone accompanying the change in authorship is striking and profound. It was not possible for Gilbert to retain the epigraph that Randolph Churchill, borrowing from Lockhart, had chosen for his work: “He shall be his own biographer.”

Randolph Churchill had found an unusual tone in writing about his father’s childhood and early career, which involved writing about his grandparents and their circle as well. Notwithstanding the undoubted filial (and familial) piety, there was a certain amused detachment, a kind of robust enjoyment of a remarkable spectacle, free from petty partisanship in regard to issues and personalities of a distant past. Scattered through Sir Winston’s own writings as the years rolled on were certain wry observations about the younger Winston. It was the spirit of these, rather than the elaborate selfjustifications of the later years, by which Randolph seemed to be guided. Still, when the work fell from his hands, the tales of world-shattering events and cosmic quarrels were yet to be told.