The Literary Churchill: Author, Reader, Actor

by Jonathan Rose

Overview

A transformative portrait of Churchill, whose love of history, theater, and reading was inextricably linked to his life as a statesman

This strikingly original book introduces a Winston Churchill we have not known before. Award-winning author Jonathan Rose explores in tandem Churchill’s careers as statesman and author, revealing the profound influence of literature and theater on Churchill’s personal, carefully composed grand story and on the decisions he made throughout his political life.
 
Rose provides in this expansive literary biography an analysis of Churchill’s writings and their reception (he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 and was a best-selling author), and a chronicle of his dealings with publishers, editors, literary agents, and censors. The book also identifies an array of authors who shaped Churchill’s own writings and politics: George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Margaret Mitchell, George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, and many more. Rose investigates the effect of Churchill’s passion for theater on his approach to reportage, memoirs, and historical works. Perhaps most remarkably, Rose reveals the unmistakable influence of Churchill’s reading on every important episode of his public life, including his championship of social reform, plans for the Gallipoli invasion, command during the Blitz, crusade for Zionism, and efforts to prevent a nuclear arms race. In a fascinating conclusion, Rose traces the significance of Churchill’s writings to later generations of politicians, among them President John F. Kennedy as he struggled to extricate the U.S. from the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300212341
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	06/09/2015
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.90(d)

About the Author

Jonathan Rose is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of History, Drew University. He lives in Morristown, NJ.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vi

Acknowledgments vii

Preface: A Literary History of Politics ix

1 The Theatre Rage 1

2 An Uneducated Man 19

3 A Pushing Age 34

4 War of the Worlds 48

5 A Portrait of the Artist 65

6 Publicity Capital 73

7 Things to Come 82

8 Comedie Anglaise 95

9 On the Stage of History 117

10 What Actually Happened 144

11 Revolutionaries 160

12 The Chancellor's Star Turn 181

13 That Special Relationship 199

14 The Apple Cart 215

15 The Producer 234

16 Blackout 249

17 The Loaded Pause 273

18 The Hour of Fate and the Crack of Doom 290

19 This Different England 326

20 The War Poet 351

21 Victory? 369

22 The Summit 395

23 The Last Whig 411

24 The Terrible Ifs 425

Notes 451

Index 495

Editorial Reviews

'One of the most remarkable books ever written about Winston Churchill.'—Piers Brendon, Literary Review

Literary Review - Piers Brendon

An interesting and at times surprising account of Churchill's tastes as a reader . . . [Rose] is a very good stylist. He is also formidably knowledgeable, and many of his nuggets will be new even to Churchill junkies.”—Ben Downing, Wall Street Journal

“Immensely enjoyable . . . marvelous . . . This gracefully written book is an original and textured study of Churchill’s imagination.” —Michael F. Bishop, Washington Post

“A most wonderful book for Churchill admirers . . . fascinating . . . the book sparkles and is the best I have ever read on the man.”—Tom Perkins, Wall Street Journal, “Books of the Year”

“Rose’s swift, incisive narrative portrays Churchill as a brilliant, if flawed, manipulator of political theater.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A masterpiece . . . a more mentally nimble version of [Churchill] the man than any previous portrait . . . superb, revelatory . . . a bravura new take on the man and his life . . . nobody should miss it.” —Steve Donoghue, Open Letters

“The biographical inattention to [Churchill’s] voluminous body of written work . . . has been a strange oversight. Now that wrong has been righted, in a single stroke and ably so, by Jonathan Rose’s The Literary Churchill.”—Anthony Paletta, Daily Beast

“Well-researched and clearly informed by great admiration and attunement to its subject . . . [and] crammed with interesting facts.” —Martin Rubin, Washington Times

“Rose doesn’t miss a trick in this fascinating look into the literary mind of one of the men who made world history.”—Dave Wood, syndicated columnist (“Book Report”)

“Rose has written a big, readable, informative, and convincing book.”—William J. Scheick, English Literature in Transition

“Very well written, filled with erudition, documentation, and insights.”—Manfred Weidhorn, Finest Hour: The Journal of Winston Churchill

“Rose has written a superb book and unlike many books about Churchill, one that really needed to be written.”—Clifford Cunningham, Sun News Miami

“Vivid, elegantly written, and thorough . . . an original and thoughtful study.”—Bradley P. Tolppanen, Winston Churchill Blog

“The Literary Churchill is . . . ingenious, certainly invaluable. . .”—Alan Allport, The Journal of Modern History

“[A] valuable book”—Geoffrey Wheatcroft, New York Review of Books

The 2016 New Jersey Committee for the Humanities Book Award in the scholarly humanities non-fiction cateogry.

'Lucid, insightful, and authoritative, The Literary Churchill reveals in rich detail how a great political life was shaped by a love of books, a theatrical flair and a brilliant talent for turning a phrase. Unlike many politicians then or now, Churchill believed that literature mattered, and as this book demonstrates convincingly, his deep commitment to the world of the imagination influenced his career at every important turn.' - Michael Shelden, author of Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill

From the Publisher

“Vivid, elegantly written, and thorough . . . an original and thoughtful study.”—Bradley P. Tolppanen, Winston Churchill Blog

Winston Churchill Blog - Bradley P. Tolppanen

The 2016 New Jersey Committee for the Humanities Book Award in the scholarly humanities non-fiction cateogry.

New Jersey Committee for the Humanities - Book Award

“Rose has written a superb book and unlike many books about Churchill, one that really needed to be written.”—Clifford Cunningham, Sun News Miami

Sun News Miami - Clifford Cunningham

“Very well written, filled with erudition, documentation, and insights.”—Manfred Weidhorn, Finest Hour: The Journal of Winston Churchill

Finest Hour: The Journal of Winston Churchill - Manfred Weidhorn

“Rose has written a big, readable, informative, and convincing book.”—William J. Scheick, English Literature in Transition

English Literature in Transition - William J. Scheick

“A most wonderful book for Churchill admirers . . . fascinating . . . the book sparkles and is the best I have ever read on the man.”—Tom Perkins, Wall Street Journal, “Books of the Year

Wall Street Journal - Tom Perkins

“Rose doesn’t miss a trick in this fascinating look into the literary mind of one of the men who made world history.”—Dave Wood, syndicated columnist (“Book Report”)

Book Report - Dave Wood

“Well-researched and clearly informed by great admiration and attunement to its subject . . . [and] crammed with interesting facts.” —Martin Rubin, Washington Times

Washington Times - Martin Rubin

“The biographical inattention to [Churchill’s] voluminous body of written work . . . has been a strange oversight. Now that wrong has been righted, in a single stroke and ably so, by Jonathan Rose’s The Literary Churchill.”—Anthony Paletta, Daily Beast

Daily Beast - Anthony Paletta

“Immensely enjoyable . . . marvelous . . . This gracefully written book is an original and textured study of Churchill’s imagination.” —Michael F. Bishop, Washington Post

Washington Post - Michael F. Bishop

“A masterpiece . . . a more mentally nimble version of [Churchill] the man than any previous portrait . . . superb, revelatory . . . a bravura new take on the man and his life . . . nobody should miss it.” —Steve Donoghue, Open Letters

Open Letters - Steve Donoghue

‘[Rose] assembles a mass of fascinating information about Churchill’s writings, readings, and politicking, much of it until now available only in the archives at Churchill College.’—Cita Stelzer, TLS

TLS - Cita Stelzer

‘This is no incidental postscript to the hundreds of volumes already published about Churchill, but a painstaking study building a formidable case for taking him seriously not just in political history but in literary history too. . .Rose made his reputation as the historian of the working-class autodidacts in Britain. Now he has consolidated it by writing about an upper-class autodidact, whose intellectual life he captures well.’ —Peter Clark. The Financial Times

The Financial Times - Peter Clark

‘Jonathan Rose. . .has shown how Churchill excelled in the application of language to the exercise of power and concludes that he 'modelled his politics on literature.' The proof is abundant and well presented in this excellent, thorough and enjoyable biography that adds a fresh and fascinating dimension to a great statesman.’—Lawrence James, The Times

The Times - Lawrence James

An interesting and at times surprising account of Churchill's tastes as a reader . . . [Rose] is a very good stylist. He is also formidably knowledgeable, and many of his nuggets will be new even to Churchill junkies.”—Ben Downing, Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal - Ben Downing

2014-03-27
A study of the statesman that demonstrates how "literature can illuminate political behavior in ways that more conventional methodologies cannot." From his early career as an intrepid journalist through his roles in nearly every post in the British government, Winston Churchill (1874-1965) fashioned himself as the hero. "There was no clear distinction between Churchill the soldier, Churchill the politician, and Churchill the author," writes Rose (History/Drew Univ.; The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, 2001, etc.). "[A]ll three were engaged in performing and publicizing a common narrative." That narrative reflected Churchill's ardent belief in both his own greatness and the "great man" theory of history. "In Politics," he wrote to his mother, "a man, I take it, gets on not so much by what he does, as by what he is. It is not so much a question of brains as of character & originality." Churchill's character, Rose argues, was shaped by books: history (especially authors who championed an imperialist worldview), novels (H. G. Wells was a favorite) and plays (George Bernard Shaw). "Churchill was congenitally ornery, an inborn individualist who kicked against any kind of restrictions," writes Rose. "His reading informed, refined, and mobilized his instinctive libertarianism to political action." His political views emerged in his huge output of writing, as well: novels, memoirs, biographies and history. Fiction and fact often blurred in his work; he recognized that deft selection of details could "transform a military disaster into an aesthetic triumph." Nor did facts hamper his oratory: "When politics is theatre," writes the author, "the substance matters less than the script. Often Churchill was a prisoner of his own rhetoric, willing to adopt almost any ideological stance as long as it offered an opportunity for a great solo performance." Rose's swift, incisive narrative portrays Churchill as a brilliant, if flawed, manipulator of political theater and a star of a tumultuous long-running drama: the history of the British Empire.< BR>★

Kirkus Reviews