CHURCHILL, Winston S.

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The World Crisis: The Aftermath. First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the initial blank, "To Ramsay MacDonald from Winston S. Churchill 1 Mar 1929". MacDonald returned to Downing Street for his second premiership three months later; his bookplate is on the front pastedown.MacDonald, leader of the Labour Party from 1922 to 1931 and Prime Minister in 1924 and from 1929 to 1935, was one of Churchill's principal political rivals during the interwar years. They frequently clashed - Churchill famously dubbed him the "boneless wonder" in 1928. In the 1930s, Churchill strongly opposed MacDonald's support for greater Indian autonomy, appeasement, and disarmament. Nonetheless, personal relations were cordial. In 1924, MacDonald had written to Churchill, "I wish we did not disagree so much... I have always held you personally in much esteem, & I hope, whatever fortune may have in store for us, that personal relationship will never be broken" (Gilbert, 1994, p. 288). On receipt of this book, MacDonald wrote to Churchill on 5 March 1929, "It is so good of you to send me your book. I am sure it will be lively and also important, and I shall take it with me to read at Easter" (Gilbert, 1979, p. 1,437).This was the fifth volume of Churchill's history of the First World War, published in six volumes from 1923 to 1931. It studies the war's outcome, the Treaty of Versailles, and the post-war European settlement.Provenance: the sale of MacDonald's son, Alister, at Sotheby

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