Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Winston Churchill, war correspondent

People tend to forget that Winston Churchill spent several years in his youth writing about wars in Cuba, India, the Sudan, and South Africa.

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Screen Shot 2016-02-01 at 10.14.18 AM

 

 

People tend to forget that Winston Churchill spent several years in his youth writing about wars in Cuba, India, the Sudan, and South Africa. If you need reminding, check out Winston Churchill Reporting: Adventures of a Young War Correspondent.

It hadn’t occurred to me until I read this book that his war correspondence brought him his first success in life, after years of being criticized by his father and others. His collected writings about the war on the Afghan-Indian frontier won good reviews. “Reading the positive press served as a great tonic,” states the author, Simon Read. “Never before had Churchill been praised in such fashion. He has grown accustomed as a student to hearing his father and teachers voice their disappointment.”

Image credit: Amazon.com

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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