LONDON – During the darkest days of World War II, as young British pilots valiantly fought the Luftwaffe over southern England and German forces prepared to invade the British Isles, Prime Minister Winston Churchill took on the task of boosting his fellow citizens’ morale, offering them a brighter future to look forward to.
To this end, Churchill’s inspirational wartime speeches occasionally featured a poem he likely encountered at Harrow School in the late nineteenth century. The poem, authored by Arthur Hugh Clough, a scholar who had served as an assistant to Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, urged people to reject the notion that fighting for good was futile. It concluded with the phrase, “Westward, look, the land is bright.”
Churchill, whose affinity for the United States was influenced by his American-born mother, confidently asserted that the US would continue to uphold liberal-democratic values in the face of the totalitarian Nazi threat. Implicit in this declaration was the hope that, if necessary, the US would come to the aid of the United Kingdom and other Western European liberal democracies.
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If Trump Wins, So Will China
30
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13.02.2024
LONDON – During the darkest days of World War II, as young British pilots valiantly fought the Luftwaffe over southern England and German forces prepared to invade the British Isles, Prime Minister Winston Churchill took on the task of boosting his fellow citizens’ morale, offering them a brighter future to look forward to.
To this end, Churchill’s inspirational........
© Project Syndicate
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