Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I am the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs Magazine.

My guest today is Tariq Ali, the legendary writer, activist, public intellectual,

the author of several dozen books, including the Obama Syndrome,

the Extreme Center, most recently the 40-year War in Afghanistan,

and the book we're here to talk about today, Winston Churchill, his times, his crimes, available from Verso Books. He is the original

street fighting man, Tarak Ali. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Very good to be with you.

So Winston Churchill, his times, his crimes, there are thousands of books, I think, on Winston Churchill.

Winston Churchill, of course, has been dead for half a century.

So the decision to write a book about Winston Churchill in 2022, a passionate and agri book is one that must have a very deep motivation. I want to talk.

I want to start with the myth that you are trying to bust in this book, the Churchill mythology, the Churchill legend.

Perhaps we could, before we smash the statue of Churchill that exists in the popular imagination,

perhaps we could start by, with you explaining, you know, the received image of Churchill that has been

passed down that you think is so dangerous and so necessary to counter as to require a book

like Winston Churchill, his Times, His Crimes.

I think it is. I wasn't convinced at first. The person who really pushed for me to write this book some years ago was Mike Davis, who I think is well known to readers in the United States for his own amazing

work. And he said it was needed because there was a great deal of confusion. No one

knew that much about him, but the myth continued to grow. So I sat down and looked at the number of books that exist on Churchill in the English-speaking

world, and they are literally, I think, just over 2000 now. I may be slightly wrong, but the last

time I looked, they were reaching 2000.

And it's not that some of these books are not good.

They are, but very few.

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