During last year's protests over the killing of George Floyd, demonstrators in London targeted the famous Winston Churchill statue on Parliament Square. Someone spray-painted the words "is a racist" under his name. To prevent further damage, the government temporarily sealed the statue and drew accusations from Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a self-proclaimed Churchill believer, declaring that "we cannot edit or censor our past now."
A churchill statue in London
In his new book, The Shadow of Churchill, Geoffrey Wheatcroft makes a literary spray painting of the iconic leader of World War II, attempting, at least in a metaphorical sense, to reconstruct many of the monuments and books written for Sir Winston over the years. In his narrative, Churchill is not only a racist, but also a hypocrite, a liar, a narcissist, an opportunist, an imperialist, an alcoholic, a strategic blunder, a tax evader, a negligent father, a writer who sells his name, a bad character judge, and most importantly, a highly skilled myth-maker.
![Churchill, who was very morally upright, was almost plotted by China during World War II, and the three major ironclad evidences cannot be denied[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)