Europe Unite by Winston S. Churchill - 1950

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1950. First edition, only printing. Hardcover. This is a jacketed copy of the U.S. first edition, only printing of the second of Churchill's postwar speech volumes. This U.S. first edition was issued using British sheets, but is considerably different than its British counterpart, bound in a blue-green cloth with dark green and black spine decoration and print. The dust jacket is printed black, green, and gray on white paper with a green background on the spine and front face. The U.S. edition is also far scarcer than its British counterpart, with only 2,500 copies for the U.S. edition versus 12,000 copies for the British edition. A major weakness of this attractive U.S. edition is the exceptional vulnerability of the blue-green binding and green dust jacket to fading. Here is a near fine copy in a very good plus dust jacket. The cloth binding is square, clean, vividly bright, and tight with only minor shelf wear to the bottom edge and lightly bumped lower corners. The contents are immaculately bright with no spotting and no previous ownership marks. The fore and bottom edges of the text block are likewise bright, the top edge only lightly dust soiled. The dust jacket is unclipped, retaining the publisher’s original “$5.00” front flap price, with loss confined to fractional chipping to the spine ends. Most notably, there is almost no discernible color shift between the front panel and spine, which remains notably bright. The white rear panel is bright with only a hint of soiling. Light scuffing does not substantively detract from what is an uncommonly bright and complete jacket. The dust jacket is protected beneath a removable, archival quality clear cover. Europe Unite includes 52 speeches spanning January 1947 to December 1948. Having done so much to win the war, Churchill faced frustration of his postwar plans when his wartime government fell to Labour in the General Election of July 1945. Europe Unite reflects Churchill's position as then-Leader of the Opposition, and many of the speeches contain both domestic and foreign policy indictments of Clement Attlee's Labour Government. Nonetheless, the title is rooted in Churchill's 7 May 1948 speech to the Congress of Europe. Churchill was an early, ardent, and vital advocate of pan-European integration. This and earlier speeches lent impetus to what would eventually become the European Union. As ardent an advocate as Churchill was of Britain, and though his rhetoric and sentiments could ascend inspiring heights, Churchill had been a soldier, a war leader, a politician and statesman and as such, could not fail to be a realist. Postwar Britain was diminished economically, militarily, and territorially. As Randolph Churchill said in his introduction to the book, Britain's "place in the world can only be regained" in part by "assumption by Britain of a leading role in promoting the unity of Europe." The movement toward European integration would continue to prevail. So would Churchill. During the election of February 1950 - the month this book was published - Churchill polled more than 37,000 votes, double that of his challenger. Labour's majority was reduced to six, and when Prime Minister Clement Attlee called another election in October 1951 the Conservatives won 321 seats to Labour’s 295, returning Churchill to Downing Street at the age of 76. Bibliographic reference: Cohen A246.2, Woods/ICS A128(b), Langworth p.297.