Andrew Roberts on the dust-up regarding the legacy of Winston Churchill
Andrew Roberts, a justly-fabulous English historian, on the recent dust-up re the legacy of Winston Churchill: “The historian Darryl Cooper has argued in an interview on Tucker Carlson's show that Winston Churchill "was the chief villain of World War II," which would be both interesting and indeed shocking were his thesis not based on such staggering ignorance and disregard for historical fact that it is safe to disregard completely.” (https://freebeacon.com/culture/no-churchill-was-not-the-villain/). Read the whole devastating analysis of Cooper’s arguments by Roberts.
Baptist commentators who take Daryl Cooper and even Tucker Carlson as gospel on this issue (as some appear to have done, witness my response to a comment on X—see below for that link) also reveal a “staggering ignorance and disregard for historical fact.”
A few brief remarks on Winston Churchill
One of my earliest memories as a young boy in the West Midlands of England was the state funeral of Winston Churchill (1874-1965), which was a decision made by our late Queen because of his remarkable leadership during one of the darkest periods of British history. Few non-royals are ever granted such. One of the few in the previous century had been Art…
PS Finally, Andrew Roberts rightly notes:
“When Carlson commended Cooper's "belief in accuracy and honesty," it provided the only comic moment in the whole interview, unless one also counts Carlson's estimation that Cooper—of whom I confess I had not hitherto heard—is ‘the most important historian in the United States’. ”
The “most important historian in the United States”! You gotta be kidding me. I have spent my entire life since I was in my twenties reading and writing history, and I have never heard of this man!
From my little perspective I agree with Roberts and other serious WSC historians in banging on this Cooper guy - Nigel Hamilton gives IMO a good different opinion of WSC in WWII with FDR in his FDR At War series. Any history of WSC, or FDR, TR or JFK, etc. must be clear-eyed and more balanced than not...
Why does Tucker Carlson keep doing this?