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Start giftingChurchill
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Learn moreChurchill: The Prophetic Statesman reveals the astonishingly accurate predictions of Britain’s most famous prime minister and how his critics’ perceptions of them shaped his political career. Who could have foreseen the start of World War I twenty-five years before the assassination of a Serbian archduke plunged Europe into war? Who could have predicted the rise of al-Qaeda nearly eight decades before anyone had heard of Osama bin Laden? Winston Churchill did. Now for the first time, bestselling author James C. Humes reveals these and other shocking predictions made by this legendary figure. Churchill didn’t need a crystal ball to tell the future. Using his skills as a historian, he studied patterns of the past to make his eerily accurate forecasts, including the rise of European fascism, the fall of the Iron Curtain, and the exact day of his own death as he entered his final years. In fascinating detail, Humes’ astonishing biography documents the spot-on prophecies Churchill foretold and the political consequences he endured for sharing them.
James C. Humes is a former White House speechwriter for five presidents and a Pulitzer Prize–nominated author of more than thirty books, including Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln; The Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Reagan; and Churchill: Speaker of the Century. He has also served as a Pennsylvania state legislator, worked as a lawyer, and was the director of policy and plans at the Department of State. He is currently a historian at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
Matthew Brenher, originally from London, now lives in Los Angeles. His theatrical background includes performances in no fewer than twenty Shakespearean productions, including Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo in Romeo & Juliet, and the title role in Henry V. In Los Angeles, he played Claudius in Hamlet, Cassio in Othello, Antony in Antony & Cleopatra, Antipholous of Syracuse in Comedy of Errors, and Orsino in Twelfth Night. Other theater includes: Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Trigorin in The Seagull, Alistair in Shaw’s The Millionairess, Jerry in Pinter’s Betrayal, the title role in Dracula, and George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, for which he was awarded best performance by a lead actor/drama by Stage Scene LA 2009–2010. He’s performed in new plays, most recently in A Bitter Fruit for Palestine, Vulcan in Love’s Mistress at the famous Globe theater in London, and Petko in an acclaimed production of The Mapletree Game. On television, he played “Mad” Marcus for six months in the now defunct British soap Brookside. Other television includes: Rules of Engagement, Bodyguards, The Blind Date, Starhunter, The Grid, Eastenders, and Nostradamus. Films include Execution, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Stay Shy, and The Boy Who would Be King. He works in commercials and industrials and is an accomplished voice-over artist.
Reviews
“Perhaps it is a cliché 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 statesmen…Churchill, however, was the leader he admired above all…In 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.”
“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 historians…Chroniclers 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.”
“‘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.”