Becoming Winston Churchill: The Untold Story of Young Winston and His American Mentor [Paperback]

Michael McMenamin (Author), Curt Zoller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2009

As a young man Winston Churchill was greatly influenced by Bourke Cockran, a charismatic New York City congressman who was Churchill's widowed mother’s lover and friend. Cockran was a brilliant trial lawyer and adviser to American presidents. He took young Winston under his wing and gave him unusual insights into the politics of the time. It was a particularly important relationship that shaped Churchill’s thinking and political outlook; it also provided a window into the United States that he would take with him all his life. The story is also biographical, told in part as fiction and reproducing for the first time the private correspondence between the two men.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"When Churchill was asked to whom he owed his oratorical skills, he surprised people by answering Bourke Cockran, an American statesman. Based on the correspondence some previously unpublished between Churchill and Cockran, authorities on Churchill (1874-1965) depict Cockran's mentoring of the future British Prime Minister. The book begins with the love affair between Churchill's widowed American mother and Cockran, and includes fictional but fact-based narratives beginning chapters, and photographs."

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Reference & Research Book News

"There is some rare stuff between the covers of Becoming Winston Churchill: material so unusual, so uncommon, that Churchillians should treasure it like a rare gem, or a first edition of Mr. Brodrick's Army….This is an huge and even vital book for any Churchillian. It is important as a source of new material and new thinking about Churchill, and as a surprisingly tender and gentle way of thinking about young people. Every person, no matter how great, needs mentors, the author's argue-especially in their youth. By mentoring the young, older people can add an critical dimensions of meaning to their lives. McMenamin and Zoller have proved it by helping to resurrect Bourke Cockran. Theirs is a message we should all take to heart."

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Finest Hour

"A volume which is not easy to categorize. Perhaps that does not greatly matter, since the totality is cleverly and persuasively done. It is at one level, as the authors see it, the story of one remarkable man growing up; at another, the chronicle of an Anglo-American exchange, at a formative stage for Winston, on the political issues of the day; and, at a third level, and evocation of late Victorian and Edwardian social, political and military life. There is, in short, something for everybody. The 'story' is intriguingly told."

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History

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"A magnificent achievement and an illuminating study of a largely forgotten relationship."

(

Allen Packwood, Director, Churchill Archives Centre

) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Enigma Books (July 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1929631871
• ISBN-13: 978-1929631872
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,683,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Winston Churchill, August 10, 2008

By 

Donald E. Jakeway (San Antonio, Texas) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Becoming Winston Churchill: The Untold Story of Young Winston and his American Mentor (Hardcover)

I have been a student of Sir Winston Churchill my entire life. Long enough to consider myself a Churchill historian and serious collector of any and all items related to his life. My personal Churchill library is extensive and I am indeed proud to know Michael McMenamin, author of "Becoming Winston Churchill" and to add his book to my library! Michael has done an outstanding job sharing with us the important influence that Mr. Bourke Cockran had on Winston as he formed his personal and political beliefs early in his life. He obviously was regarded a close personal friend, mentor and perhaps even as a respected father figure. I recommend this book highly! Donald E. Jakeway

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a must for churchillians, December 26, 2007

By 

Gilbert Michaud (canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Becoming Winston Churchill: The Untold Story of Young Winston and his American Mentor (Hardcover)

for people really interested in the only mentor churchill ever had this book is a must have

5.0 out of 5 stars Mentoring and Winston Churchill, December 20, 2011

By 

Nathan R. Uldricks (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Becoming Winston Churchill: The Untold Story of Young Winston and His American Mentor (Paperback)

Before setting sail for Troy to join battle in the Trojan War, Odysseus entrusted the care of his infant son, Telemachus, with his old friend Mentor. Eventually, as Telemachus grew up and started assuming duties as head-of-household in Odysseus's long absence, Athena, disguised as Mentor, advised him to stand up to all of his mother's suitors, search for his long-lost father, and eventually defend the family's honor.

Throughout the centuries, indeed the millennia, the term mentor has come to mean an older individual that takes a special interest in the personal development and learning of a younger person. This mentor will impart his/her wisdom and knowledge to a pupil or protégé, whether trade-related through an apprenticeship or through life lessons procured through years of successes and failures. But a mentor isn't necessarily a formal teacher. Usually they are someone more mature in their career and life that for whatever reason takes a liking to younger person. And they personally see to it that their mentee grows, matures, and eventually realizes his/her dreams.

There have been many famous mentor relationships over the years, ranging from every sort of field and industry imaginable. Aristotle, for instance, was a mentor to Alexander the Great, George Washington was one to Alexander Hamilton, and Dr. Dre to Eminem. Another particular but lesser known mentor relationship of great consequence for world history was that between William Bourke Cockran and Winston Churchill.

Before Michael McMenamin and Curt Zoller's fascinating book, not much was written about Bourke Cockran's influence on the man that would very nearly save Western civilization. McMenamin and Zoller describe Cockran as "an American, an Irish-born, French-educated lawyer and Democratic Congressman from New York City, a close friend of Churchill's American-born mother... [he is] a near-forgotten figure in American political history who served as the young Winston Churchill's mentor, unselfishly helping his protégé formulate his political thought and develop his speaking style."

Shortly after the death of Churchill's father, Lord Randolph Churchill whom served as Chancellor of the Exchequer for the House of Parliament, his mother, the American-born actress Jennie Jerome, had a chance encounter with Cockran. They had only a brief affair, but remained close acquaintances thereafter. Having lost his father when he was only 20 years old, Churchill found a mentor and indeed father-figure in Cockran, who had no children of his own.

Though it was to be six more years before he was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) at the age of 26, Churchill knew his destiny was to follow in his father's footsteps and wished more than anything to pursue a career in politics. As a cavalry officer in the 4th Hussars, eventually participating in one of last cavalry charges in history, Churchill began his political education by devouring books and newspapers. Churchill read everything from Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of Roman Empire, Plato's Republic, and Thomas MacCaulay's poems. It was in The Annual Register, however, where he truly began developing opinions of his own on the political and economic affairs of the British Empire.

First written and edited by the famous Irish statesmen and political philosopher Edmund Burke in 1758, The Register provided an account of all the noteworthy events and developments of the year. Churchill just didn't read the Register, he contemplated and assessed all matters and wrote in the margins of the book his thoughts and opinions. Through this process, he began developing his guiding worldview and subsequently started forging the foundations of his political thought.

Bourke Cockran came along at just the right time in Churchill's life. McMenamin and Zoller discuss a study done by Yale psychologist Daniel Levinson. Levinson indicates that in a young man's "Novice Phase", the transition between childhood and full adulthood (years 18-30), a mentor serves as a transitional figure, a "mixture of parent and peer". And during those transition years, a young person is essentially trying to fully define his/her career vision and figure out how to achieve it. So for Churchill at the age of 20, McMenamin and Zoller write, "Cockran was the first and, for some time, the only man to support and then facilitate the realization of the young Churchill's dream of a life in politics."

As one of the most talented orators in the United States in the late 19th Century, Cockran's speech writing and delivery abilities served as a model for Churchill. Churchill consistently read Cockran's speeches, analyzing not just the text for insights into political philosophy but for crowd reception as well. For the Presidential Election of 1896, speaking on behalf of the Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan, Cockran delivered the most famous speech of his career at the Madison Square Garden. He discussed such complex (and many would think boring) topics as monetary policy in language that the layman could understand and relate to, a practice which Churchill perfected in his later years. In a written response to Cockran on his speech, Churchill congratulates him "most heartily upon what was not only a rhetorical triumph but also a moral victory." By reading and discussing Cockran's speeches, Churchill began emulating not just his speech writing and delivery abilities but the content within as well.

Trade policy was one of the most pressing issues of the day for both the United States and the British Empire. Then, in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, the Democratic Party supported free trade, which Cockran as one it's most fervent and articulate advocates. Churchill's natural inclinations were toward free trade, but his Tory Party sided with the propertied class which had an interest in protective tariffs to keep prices for their goods artificially high. Deeply read in such free-market economic thought as Adam Smith, Cockran served as a teacher to Churchill. He provided him with book recommendations and he explained the economic and moral arguments for free trade that would strengthen Churchill's convictions.

Churchill's convictions for free trade and free market economics grew so strong that he soon faced what Cockran would describe to him as "very probably the crisis of your career." This crisis was his decision to buck the Tory Party over the issue of free trade and cross the floor. Crossing the floor quite literally means to walk across the floor of the House of Parliament from one side to the other, leaving your party to defect to another. It was, and still is, a generally frowned upon practice because it leaves a lingering feeling of suspicion toward the MP. Indeed, even after many years (albeit with another crossing), Churchill's motivations were still held suspect and many fellow MPs questioned his ability to be loyal to his party. However, Churchill crossed the floor both times in the name of principle, not opportunity. As he explained later: "To remain constant when a Party changes is to excite invidious challenge... Still, a sincere conviction, in harmony with the needs of the time and upon a great issue, will be found to override all other factors; and it is right and in the public interest that it should." Cockran inspired confidence and courage in Churchill throughout this personal crisis, explaining that "the judgment of which men fairly unbiased will form of you, now, is very likely the one that will follow you through life." Despite oftentimes being resented by his fellow party members throughout his career, he is indeed remembered as one of the most principled statesmen in world history.

***

In this short book, McMenamin and Zoller do us all a great service by revealing not only the forces that shaped a young Winston Churchill. But they also introduce most of us to a great American of the past 100 years, and also reinvigorate the need of mentorship in positively influencing young people's lives.