Book: Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes
Author: Tariq Ali
Some professional reviews of this book say that Ali uses the
tv show Peaky Blinders as a source; he doesn’t.
Some also claim that he uses the disgraced Holocaust denier David Irving
, this also doesn’t seem to be the case. Ali also doesn’t say that a certain
famous British colonizer set foot in South Africa before a certain year,
either (though that section jumps around in time quite a bit). It should be noted that Ali’s book about Churchill is going to get under
the skin of several Churchill hero worshippers, so it is most likely going to
be a polarizing book.
Ali’s
book is a much needed challenge and/or corrective to over saturation of
Churchill hagiography books that seem to come out every single month. Ali’s focus is on the destruction of peoples
that one can lay at the foot of Churchill.
What is not
a is a biography of Churchill. It is
more a look of his policies/political actions and the effects of them.
Ali does
a good job of show casing the times and the political clashes that were going
on, the challenges to imperialism that Churchill would battle against. But this is also the book’s weakest point –
it is almost too much about the times instead of about Churchill’s influence/reaction/action
or thoughts about those times. In points
of the book, Churchill is hidden from sight.
This is in part because of the book is not completely linear in terms of time.
It focuses more on areas of the global and the impact that Churchill policies
or lack there of had on those places. It
is extremely readable and a good read.
There are also times in the book
where he goes almost completely off topic – like when he takes time to response
to two American critics of the Satyajit Ray movie Distant Thunder. Perhaps the film critics resented the films
depiction of Bengali famine because of their worship of Churchill but it is impossible
to tell from the context in the book. Additionally,
I do wish that there were more citations – what Ali choses to cite and what he
doesn’t is interesting .The citation comment is one that can be leveled at
several more recent popular history books in the last few years, by the
way. It is hardly something that Ali only
does. At times this lack can be seen as weakening
his point because why not give an example or citation in some cases, especially
when saying all people of a certain age hate Churchill in say Greece,
especially when he does give examples of how people in a different country feel
about Churchill. Again, this is
something that more and more popular histories are doing so maybe I am out of
touch with the current style. (As an aside, I thought it strange that a book published
by an anti-capitalist publisher kept referring to and encouraging readers to
read other works published by the company.
Money making or message spreading, you decide).
The book
is important though. Because it does
change the view of Churchill and gives an much need corrective to the view of
Churchill as a good guy. The best parts
of the book are when Ali is writing about the impact of Churchill on India. It is a needed book because too often
Churchill’s bad parts are dismissed or downplayed, and Ali’s book is corrective
to that, at least on the global scale. It
is a good starting point for discussion and reevaluation. Even if you think Churchill was “the man” you
should read this book with an open mind for the different point of view.
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