Churchill: The Prophetic Statesman Hardcover - 2012

From the rear cover

PRAISE for Churchill: The Prophetic Statesman
Perhaps it is a cliche that a politician thinks of the next election and a statesman of the next generation, yet my grandfather found merit in the maxim. He had known leaders he esteemed as the greatest of statesmenChurchill, however, was the leader he admired above allIn hundreds of studies of Churchill, no one else, remarkably enough, has focused on Churchill s predictions and prophecies. James Humes has produced a book that is unique as well as necessary for an understanding of statesmanship.
DAVID EISENHOWER, author and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute
Some have written that the two giants of the last century were Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan. As the latter s son, I might agree, but I will leave that assessment to historiansChroniclers will surely conclude that both men toppled totalitarian tyrannies with eloquence and courage. The two men had different styles, but each played a decisive role in the victory of freedom over dictatorship[Churchill s] sound judgment, along with his courage, made him one of history s greatest leaders. There are important lessons here for our own troubled times.
MICHAEL REAGAN, former radio host and Republican strategist
What if? is the great parlor game of all historians, professional and amateur. In Churchill: The Prophetic Statesman, James Humes gives us a stunning but overlooked version of conjectural history. Humes outlines dozens of Churchill s own spectacular prophecies, revealing him to be a Nostradamus of the political and military events of the twentieth century. To paraphrase Churchill himself: Never has so much been predicted by one man and ignored by so many?.?.?.?until now.
MICHAEL KEANE, author of Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer
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From the jacket flap

THE STATESMAN WHO PREDICTED THE FUTURE

Winston Churchill was one of the most remarkable statesmen in history--but more than that, he had an uncanny ability to predict future events. Churchill: The Prophetic Statesman, by James C. Humes, a bestselling author on Winston Churchill and a Churchill reenactor, is the first book to examine this extraordinary aspect of Churchill's character.

As a boy, Churchill predicted World War I. He envisioned the tank--and later helped make his vision a reality. As an elder statesman he foresaw the end of the Cold War, virtually to the year. He predicted the development of nuclear weapons, two decades before they were invented. In 1899, he imagined the rise of a figure remarkably like Adolf Hitler. He foresaw the creation of Israel, a cause he also helped advance as a politician. He even predicted the date of his own death.

How did Churchill do it? Some of it was simply inexplicable prescience. As Richard Nixon said, Churchill was the only "political leader in history who had his own crystal ball." But Humes shows how Churchill's intense study of history allowed him to predict the future, and how his experience as a historian and as a statesman helped him to understand the course of circumstances and events.
Churchill once said that a statesman needed "the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen." But Churchill very rarely got it wrong. Churchill: The Prophetic Statesman highlights one of the most amazing facets of one of history's most amazing men.