From Adam Gopnik’s write-up of the latest crop of Churchill literature in one of this past summer’s New Yorkers, a pretty radical departure from the rhetoric Winnie normally gets credit for (ht JD:

What is Churchill’s true legacy? Surely not that one should stand foursquare on all occasions and at all moments against something called appeasement. “The word ‘appeasement’ is not popular, but appeasement has its place in all policy,” he said in 1950. “Make sure you put it in the right place. Appease the weak, defy the strong.” He argued that “appeasement from strength is magnanimous and noble and might be the surest and perhaps the only path to world peace.” And he remarked on the painful irony: “When nations or individuals get strong they are often truculent and bullying, but when they are weak they become better-mannered. But this is the reverse of what is healthy and wise.”