Mark Weber is the director of the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), an organisation that aims to promote greater public awareness and understanding of history, particularly regarding the causes and consequences of war and conflict.
Put another way, he tries to correct fake history.
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
George Orwell
The establishment doesn’t like the IHR because it strives for historical accuracy rather than political correctness.
Mark is a historian, author, and commentator who has written extensively on topics like US foreign policy and 20th-century European and American history.
He has an equally extensive knowledge on Winston Churchill.
I read his movie review of Darkest Hour, in which Gary Oldman played Churchill, and used that as the basis of our conversation.
Mark says that, as Hollywood goes, it is worth watching for its entertainment value and excellent production, but the viewer must be cognisant of the historical inaccuracies typically perpetuated in the West.
After all, it is just a movie.
In a previous conversation I had with Dr E Michael Jones, he [Dr Jones] spoke about how literature influences and shapes, not only opinion, but history itself. For example, we are constantly told that the Allies were the good guys, but were they?
Similarly, we are constantly told that Churchill was a great leader. But was he?
The answers to both questions are no.
Listen to the following:
History is written by the victors.
Winston Churchill
Conversation
Mark discusses Churchill’s backstory, including the Anglo-Boer War, his entrance into British politics, his popularity (or lack thereof) within his party and the general public, and his hatred for Germany.
Churchill really, really hated Germany.
And Hitler.
Mark takes on the classically heroic image of Churchill, pointing out his wartime hypocrisy and appeasement of Joseph Stalin, while also noting Churchill’s lifelong philo-Semitism.
I mean, not even Churchill’s own party and people like him.
He also discusses Churchill’s relationship with Adolf Hitler who, paradoxically, admired and respected Churchill.
The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
Mark Twain
Nonetheless, Churchill’s decisionmaking during the war ultimately helped lead to the decline of the British Empire.
Why, then, are we constantly told that he was great?
Churchill was a white supremacist who believed that the Anglo-Saxon race was superior to all others and that the British Empire should be maintained at any cost.
Noam Chomsky, Rogue States
