Roberts

Winston Churchill’s reputation as a brilliant statesman might seem rock solid, but it’s under assault from the left, the right and from so-called revisionists. The war for Churchill’s honor is being fought in cyberspace, in academia – and now at Cornell.

Award-winning British historian, biographer and journalist Andrew Roberts will speak in defense of Churchill’s legacy, Nov. 7 at 5:30 p.m. in 196 Statler Hall. His Merrill Family Colloquium lecture, “Winston Churchill: Brilliant Statesman or Brutal Demagogue?,” is free and open to the public.

Roberts, the Department of History’s inaugural Merrill Family Visiting Professor, is teaching a course this fall, Great European Leaders of the 19th and 20th Centuries and Their Influence on History. He also spoke on campus in November 2011 on “Why Hitler Lost.”

He received his Ph.D. from Cambridge University and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the International Napoleonic Society. He reviews history books for more than a dozen newspapers and periodicals in the United Kingdom and the United States. He also contributes political commentary to The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator and other publications, and has written award-winning histories of World War II and of English-speaking peoples since 1900. He is currently writing a biography of Napoleon.



The professorship is made possible by the Merrill family, who also support the annual Merrill Presidential Scholars Program and provided major funding for Cornell’s Merrill Family Sailing Center, which opened in May 2009. The late Philip Merrill ’55 was a publisher, diplomat, Cornell trustee and presidential councillor. He and his wife, Eleanor, firmly believed that all Cornell students should have a strong grounding in history, the American political tradition and the humanities.

The Merrills’ three children – Douglas Merrill ’89, MBA ’91; Catherine Merrill Williams ’91 and Nancy Merrill ’96 – along with their mother endowed the visiting professorship to inspire a campuswide dialogue about issues of historical importance.

Linda B. Glaser is staff writer and publicist for the College of Arts and Sciences.