Histories and biographies of Winston Churchill frequently mention
his friends. Some comment on their importance but few explain their
significance. Indeed, he rarely spoke of his friendships. However,
his concern for friends and for friendship always seems to hover
above, or in the background, of his statecraft and in his thinking
about statecraft and politics. This book brings friendship into
focus as a central component of Churchill's understanding of
politics and statesmanship. Regarding friendship as a key to
politics seems archaic or even elitist today in the minds of many.
But for many of the greatest statesmen of the past and even of
contemporary times, friendship has been the central category of
their statecraft and their moral vision of politics. Churchill was
one of those statesmen. This book examines friendship as the core
of Churchill's moral vision of politics by considering both his
practice of friendship, as well as his thoughts on friendship in
political life. It examines some of the friendships he conducted in
his political life, including with Lord Birkenhead (F. E. Smith),
Lord Beaverbrook (Max Aitken), and Franklin D. Roosevelt. It also
examines his historical and political writings to explain how he
regarded friendship also as a goal for political life. He regarded
Parliament as a club of friends who esteemed their friendships, as
parliamentarians who are custodians of the common, as nobler than
the partisan differences that divided them. The idea of
trans-partisan friendships also animated the "Other Club" he
founded with Birkenhead. Indeed, Churchill thought parliamentary
democracy, more than other regimes, depends upon the friendliness
of its statesmen and its citizens to mitigate the heat of factional
strife. For him, parliamentary democracy depends on personal
friendships of the highest order to sustain the forms and
formalities of the regime, as well as the political friendship upon
which they are based. Churchill's biography of his great ancestor
John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, is his greatest statement
of his political wisdom that consists also of a sustained statement
on the centrality of friendship in politics. His view of Great
Britain as an "island story" is also his expression of a political
friendship expressed as a long historical adventure, much as he his
personal friendships within politics as great adventures. Because
adventures get sung about, he was its main singer, whose "songs"
appeared as his speeches and extensive historical writings. As a
book about Churchill's moral vision for politics, this book asks a
philosophical question by considering his life, political actions,
and writings. This book is not a biographical or historical
description of Churchill and his friends. This is more of a
character sketch, or a work of "empirical political philosophy"
because of the philosophical exposition it provides of the actions
and speeches of a creative prince such as Churchill. This book
describes how Churchill understood friendship as the essence of
statesmanship.
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