The Enduring, Dangerous Legacy of Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill, Britain’s premier during World War II, is honored for his stubborn “bull dog” hostility toward Hitler and Nazism, and his important role in ultimately destroying Third Reich Germany. He pressed for war against Hitler’s Germany “at all costs,” repeatedly rejecting opportunities for peace. His policies brought death and destruction on a mass scale, Soviet domination of central and eastern Europe, a shattered British empire, and Britain itself exhausted and bankrupt. The iconic, well-polished image of Churchill as a courageous and principled defender of freedom is based on a deceitful and ultimately dangerous narrative of twentieth-century history. In our own era, the enduring Churchill “cult” encourages policies that are as harmful as they are short-sighted.