On May 13, 1940 a man gave a speech before Parliament that would start his tenure as prime minister, a tenure that would end with him recognized as one of the towering figures of the 20th Century.

When Winston Churchill took over as prime minister, Great Britain was in a bad way. France was about to fall to Germany and it meant that Great Britain would be standing alone against both Germany and Japan. The U.S. was still more than a year and a half from entering World War II.

About the best that England could hope for was to keep its head above water, fend off Germany and Japan and keep going until the tide turned.

Churchill told the English people he had nothing to offer them but “blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

Later, after the British Army had to be evacuated from France he said, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

Then, when France surrendered, Churchill asked the British people to “brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say ‘this was their finest hour.’”

It was Britain’s finest hour, and Churchill’s too. He became the British Lion, the symbol of courage and resolve in the face of German and Japanese tyranny at a time when England stood alone. All the best that England had stood for in its history was embodied in a man who had been considered politically washed up for several years.

A few months later came the German blitz as German planes nightly bombed London. Thousands of British citizens were killed. The Royal Air Force, with a relative handful of pilots, managed to hold off the onslaught. In praise of those pilots Churchill famously said “never in the course of human history has so much been owed by so many to so few.”

The words I have quoted are mere snippets from a lifetime of great speechmaking. The words he spoke are impressive enough to read, but will give you chills when you hear the original broadcasts of his speeches. (You can hear many of them on the Internet. Just put ‘Churchill speeches’ in the search engine.)

Among leaders of nations in the last 200 years, only Abraham Lincoln comes close to Churchill for eloquence and mastery of language.

Churchill was made an honorary citizen of the United States in the early 60’s and when President John F. Kennedy made the announcement he said that Churchill “marshaled the English language and sent it into battle.”

He did that and more, proving that words can move and inspire men and that the right words, spoken by the right man at the right time can ring through history.

BOOK OF THE WEEK

“All over but the Shoutin’” 1997 By Rick Bragg.

Many literary critics might disagree, but I have felt for several years that Rick Bragg is the best writer in America.

You perhaps have read “Angela’s Ashes” the story of growing up poor in Ireland by Frank McCourt. It won the Pulitzer prize and was made into a movie.

This is the American “Angela’s Ashes”. In my view it is far better and I believe “Angela’s Ashes” is a great book.

Rick Bragg and his brother grew up dirt poor in the South, raised by a loving mother who had long ago been abandoned by her husband.

Bragg writes of the poor in the South as well as anybody ever has. His South is not the one of columned porches and mint juleps. His instead is the South of farmers trying to raise crops in unforgiving Georgia clay, of men who lost fingers and arms in textile mills, a place where moonshine liquor is still consumed out of Mason jars.

He is proof that some people are just born with talent. His formal education ended after one semester of junior college yet he won a Pulitzer prize while writing for the New York Times, a Nieman fellowship at Harvard and both envy and praise from other writers who wish they could turn a phrase like him.

If you pick up “All over but the Shoutin’”, you won’t be able to put it down.