November 30, 2018: Today is Sir Winston S. Churchill’s 144^th birthday, a day for remembering. Churchill has been gone for 53 years. Yet, because of a recent surge of film and television treatments, most notably Darkest Hour (2017), in which he was brilliantly portrayed by Gary Oldman—as well as kerfuffles on Twitter about the legitimacy of even quoting, much less admiring him—he remains in the public consciousness.

Dispute over Churchill’s reputation is not new. The struggle between Churchill and his critics reminds us that in the fray of politics there are always multiple views, and no one has the benefit of a purely positive public image. Churchill was no exception. A political career of more than sixty years is bound to be marked, even in the best of circumstances, by ebbs and flows of fortune, by jealousies, dislikes, and even hatreds. Churchill’s career spanned a period of tremendous challenges both domestically and internationally. Such a career was bound to excite impassioned responses, especially when its author was a man possessed of such extraordinary qualities, who actively tried to remain at the forefront of political affairs, and who was not afraid of giving offense when he thought he was right.

For many, Churchill holds a seat in the pantheon of historical heroes. But that it was unexpected that he did so in light of his pre-WWII career is a point that can easily be lost in the selectiveness of historical memory. Churchill’s reputation underwent a massive and surprising transformation. For decades he had been written off as washed-up and irrelevant, but he emerged finally as the savior of his country and much else besides. Churchill’s reputation had charted a course from crushing depths of Gallipoli to breathtaking peaks of Britain’s “finest hour” in 1940. Such a dramatic swing gave rise to competing portraits of the man.

The first forty years of Churchill’s political life were marked by much criticism. The list of grievances against him was extensive–that he was a bloody-minded warmonger, a strategic bungler who had cost the lives of thousands, a cruel oppressor of the lower classes, a shameless self-promoter, and an un-principled political opportunist, among others. Throughout these four decades in public office, Churchill repeatedly confronted thorny political difficulties, out of which no one could emerge unblemished. He took fire from both the Left and the Right of the political spectrum, and sometimes from both directions at once. Yet it remains clear that even his fiercest enemies could hardly deny the irrepressible energy and broad genius he brought to bear on whatever issue came before him.

The unexpected turn in Churchill’s reputation began in 1940 when a man thought to be thoroughly discredited and mired in political oblivion emerged as a national hero. His career was to see a new dawn, lit by the harsh glare of approaching war. The Conservative leadership was undermined by the unpleasant international realities it had striven mightily to ignore or keep at bay. Churchill’s long record of warning and exhortation made it clear even to those who did not want him that he was the only man who could take the helm. He became Prime Minister on May 10, 1940. The determined and inspirational leadership that led his people out of the dark valley to the summit of victory is the bedrock upon which his fame is built.

The Second World War transformed perceptions of Churchill, due both to historical circumstance and his own campaign, waged through oratory, journalism, and history, to replace old criticisms with his own understanding of himself as a man of destiny. Thus began the battle over Churchill’s reputation, a battle in which Churchill himself was one of the most energetic combatants, a battle in which offensives and counteroffensives are launched even today. Even as Churchill was called upon to lead the country through war, some remained who could not forget or forgive what they viewed as his past faults, mistakes, and even wickedness. Such hammering at supposed feet of clay remains a popular pastime.

The personal and political assaults against Churchill are many and various, ranging from silly to serious, such as alcoholism, warmongering, advocacy of chemical warfare, political oppression, and racism.  Did he want the Lusitania to be sunk? Did he allow Coventry to be bombed? Did he know about the attack on Pearl Harbor before it happened? Was he responsible for the famine in Bengal? To defend Churchill against this great accusatory host is too large a task to be undertaken here. I point the reader to the definitive and essential treatment of these charges, Richard M. Langworth’s Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality: What He Actually Did and Said (McFarland, 2017).

The conflict over whether Churchill’s exalted reputation is deserved or the result of self-promotion and loyalist mythology has continued long after his death. Perhaps what has emerged is a healthy middle position: one which recognizes that much of the Churchill legend is true but is willing to admit that he was not always right, that he had his share of frailties and flaws. While Churchill’s image may have fallen slightly from the immense heights it once occupied, his heroism is more real because it emerges from a life of both sun and shadow.

In January of 1965, Churchill’s funeral train passed through Oxford station before a hushed and reverent crowd. His death had been the occasion of an outpouring of national and world-wide sentiment. Perhaps Churchill’s reputation was then at its peak, but it has not been relegated to the shelves of history. It has been constantly revisited, paged through, and re-evaluated. It is right that it should be so: if the world has not fundamentally changed, Churchill’s legacy is still worth considering; if the challenges he faced are still among the possibilities for us, it is valuable to reflect on the character of the man who overcame them. That Churchill was one of history’s most remarkable figures there can be no doubt. The reminder that his emergence as a hero was unexpected places Churchill back within the ebb and flow of real politics and hard choices, making the legend more approachable.