SOURCE: “Makers of History,” in Times Literary Supplement, No. 2826, April 27, 1956, pp. 245-46.

In the following essay, the author notes Churchill's emphasis in The Birth of Britain on the advantages of war-like propensities in the historical development of Great Britain.

Sir Winston Churchill spoke of common citizenship for the inhabitants of Great Britain and the United States when he was made an honorary Doctor of Law at Harvard University on September 6, 1943. Even at that time he had long been meditating his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, which is at length being published at intervals in four volumes:

At the outbreak of the war about half a million words were duly delivered. Of course there was still much to be done in proof-reading when I went to the Admiralty on September 3, 1939. All this was set aside. During nearly six years of war, and an even longer period in which I...