As Black Lives Matter protests roiled American cities in 2020, young activists in the United Kingdom waged their own campaign against a man revered as the greatest Englishman of the 20th century.
Activists defaced statues of Winston Churchill, and the Last Lion’s racial views came under renewed scrutiny from academics.
As Americans know from their own nation’s reckoning with racial injustice, statues of figures of Christopher Columbus and Confederate generals have been attacked by mobs or peacefully removed by local officials. Even Abraham Lincoln has not escaped woke criticism.
At stake in these convulsions is the meaning and ownership of national history. Good nations must have great heroes whose legacies continue to shape the present in positive ways. Or is it true that any nation that memorializes a racist defender of colonialism and empire is ignoring its past to the detriment of today’s generations? And who gets to decide which heroes deserve statues?
In this episode of History As It Happens, world-renowned military historian Max Hastings challenges us to embrace a balanced view of Churchill’s important legacy, one that does justice to history without ignoring misdeeds.
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“All the historians I respect try to see the past in terms of the past,” said Mr. Hastings, the author of “Winston’s War: Churchill 1940-1945.”
“To try to impose the values of the 21st century on a completely different era seems something that is extremely difficult if not impossible to do.”
Mr. Hastings neither ignores nor excuses Churchill’s racism. His views of Indians and Africans were typical of someone born in 1874 who grew up believing in the greatness and the necessity of the British Empire. But as prime minister, Churchill displayed a “deplorably callous attitude” in the face of the Bengal famine.
There was more to Churchill’s life, however, not least his indispensable leadership during the darkest hours of the Second World War, when Great Britain fought the Nazis alone in 1940 as the standard-bearer for democracy while fascist domination washed over Europe.
For the full interview with Max Hastings, listen to this episode of History As It Happens.
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