Churchill's Empire: The World That Made Him and the World He Made

by Richard Toye

Hardcover, 2010

Call number

941.084 TOY

Collection

Publication

Henry Holt and Co. (2010), Edition: 1, 448 pages

Description

"A charmer and a bully, Winston Churchill was driven by a belief that the English were a superior race, whose goals went beyond individual interests to offer an enduring good to the entire world. No better example exists than Churchill's resolve to stand alone against a more powerful Hitler in 1940 while the world's democracies fell to their knees. But there is also the Churchill who frequently inveighed against human rights, nationalism, and constitutional progress--the imperialist who could celebrate racism and believed India was unsuited to democracy. Drawing on newly released documents and an uncanny ability to separate the facts from the overblown reputation (by midcareer Churchill had become a global brand), Richard Toye provides the first comprehensive analysis of Churchill's relationship with the empire. Instead of locating Churchill's position on a simple left/right spectrum, Toye demonstrates how the statesman evolved and challenges the reader to understand Churchill's need to reconcile the demands of conscience with those of political conformity"--Cover, p. 2.… (more)

Media reviews

Winston Churchill is remembered for leading Britain through her finest hour — but what if he also led the country through her most shameful one? What if, in addition to rousing a nation to save the world from the Nazis, he fought for a raw white supremacy and a concentration camp network of his
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own? This question burns through Richard Toye’s superb, unsettling new history, “Churchill’s Empire” — and is even seeping into the Oval Office.
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User reviews

LibraryThing member RTS1942
A useful review of Churchill's role in the Empire and effort to analyse his true feelings and how they may have changed over his long career.
LibraryThing member rivkat
Toye surveys Churchill’s acts and statements about Britain’s empire, from Ireland to South Africa, Canada, Australia, and India, over the course of his extremely eventful lifetime. The book therefore skims over a lot of things that deserve (and have) books of their own, but I was really
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interested in how Toye showed Churchill’s concepts of empire operating in so many different contexts. Toye points out that those who excuse Churchill’s racism as typical for a Victorian of his upbringing have to deal with the fact that other Britons with similar backgrounds managed to do better. Ultimately, Churchill was an overt racist: though he espoused the idea that “civilized” men were all entitled to the same rights, he defined civilization in such a way that it was very hard for nonwhites to achieve it. At the same time, his concepts of empire and of the shared destiny of the “English-speaking peoples” complicated his reactions to developments in Britain’s colonies/protectorates/etc., as did his keen desire for political power.
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LibraryThing member bennyb
An interesting read. An insight into Churchill's attitude towards the British Empire over his lifetime. By reading this book I learned Churchill often would contradict himself. For instance he believed in fundamental human rights for all men but seemed to exclude some ethnic groups from this
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principle (not overtly of course!). Many people see Churchill as a great historical figure, but I feel this book as portrayed him as a complex character who frustrated many people with his unreliable behavior throughout his life.
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Pages

448

ISBN

0805087958 / 9780805087956

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