Winston Churchill: His Life, Times, and Leadership

Outside of Shakespeare, Winston Churchill is probably the best-known Englishman of all-time. His varied career as a soldier, journalist, author, parliamentarian, cabinet minister, and prime minister, is without equal in British history. Today, Churchill’s reputation as a leader is overwhelmingly heroic, but in his own time he was often controversial and in the years leading up to his becoming prime minister in 1940 many contemporaries thought that his political career was over. This course is full-orbed, in that it attempts to probe the life and times of Churchill as fully as possible. He was a major actor in a number of British and world events spanning over half a century, from the imperial reconquest of Sudan in 1898 to the Cold War of the 1950s. His life in connection with these and many other important events will be examined closely. Prerequisite: 3 credit hours in HIST.