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Churchill: A Life
It is impossible to understand the Second World War without understanding Winston Churchill, the bold British Prime Minister who showed himself to be one of the greatest statesmen any nation has ever known. This lengthy biography is a single-volume abridgment of a massive, eight-volume work that took a quarter-century to write. It covers Churchill's entire life, highlighting not only his exploits during the Second World War, but also his early belief in technology and how it would revolutionize warfare in the 20th century. Churchill learned how to fly a plane before the First World War, and was also involved in the development of both the tank and anti-aircraft defense, but he truly showed his unmatched mettle during his country's darkest moments: "His finest hour was the leadership of Britain when it was most isolated, most threatened, and most weak; when his own courage, determination, and belief in democracy became at one with the nation," writes Gilbert.
1088 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1991
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About the author
Martin Gilbert
196books399followersThe official biographer of Winston Churchill and a leading historian on the Twentieth Century, Sir Martin Gilbert was a scholar and an historian who, though his 88 books, has shown there is such a thing as “true history�
Born in London in 1936, Martin Gilbert was educated at Highgate School, and Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating with First Class Honours. He was a Research Scholar at St Anthony's College, and became a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford in 1962, and an Honorary Fellow in 1994. After working as a researcher for Randolph Churchill, Gilbert was chosen to take over the writing of the Churchill biography upon Randolph's death in 1968, writing six of the eight volumes of biography and editing twelve volumes of documents. In addition, Gilbert has written pioneering and classic works on the First and Second World Wars, the Twentieth Century, the Holocaust, and Jewish history.
Gilbert drove every aspect of his books, from finding archives to corresponding with eyewitnesses and participants that gave his work veracity and meaning, to finding and choosing illustrations, drawing maps that mention each place in the text, and compiling the indexes. He travelled widely lecturing and researching, advised political figures and filmmakers, and gave a voice and a name “to those who fought and those who fell.�
Born in London in 1936, Martin Gilbert was educated at Highgate School, and Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating with First Class Honours. He was a Research Scholar at St Anthony's College, and became a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford in 1962, and an Honorary Fellow in 1994. After working as a researcher for Randolph Churchill, Gilbert was chosen to take over the writing of the Churchill biography upon Randolph's death in 1968, writing six of the eight volumes of biography and editing twelve volumes of documents. In addition, Gilbert has written pioneering and classic works on the First and Second World Wars, the Twentieth Century, the Holocaust, and Jewish history.
Gilbert drove every aspect of his books, from finding archives to corresponding with eyewitnesses and participants that gave his work veracity and meaning, to finding and choosing illustrations, drawing maps that mention each place in the text, and compiling the indexes. He travelled widely lecturing and researching, advised political figures and filmmakers, and gave a voice and a name “to those who fought and those who fell.�
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October 3, 2022
This compelling and comprehensive volume by the greatest living historian of the 20th century, is the definitive biography of Winston Churchill.
The book particularly stresses what a great humanitarian and opponent of all forms of tyranny, that Churchill was.
As a young Member of Parliament , Churchill voiced his anger at the massacre by the British expeditionary invasion force into Tibet of 600 unarmed Tibetan peasants by Colonel Younghusband : "Are there any people in the world so mean spirited not to resist under the circumstances which these poor Tibetans have been subjected. It has been their land for centuries and though they are only Asiatic liberty and home mean something to them".
He also denounced what he termed 'the disgusting butchery of the Natives' when a Zulu rebellion in Natal was brutally crushed by the British authorities in 1806, and the violent treatment of Chinese labourers in South Africa at the time.
He was an opponent of Socialism but, unlike Margaret Thatcher, did realize that there were times when government intervention to uplift the poorest sections of British society was necessary.
After World War II, Churchill stressed the constructive aspect and aims of Conservatism, and at his daughter Sarah's suggestion elaborated on the coalition governments Four Year Plan for social insurance, industrial industries insurance and a National Health Service. He announced that the conservatives would provide free milk for the 'very poor' and the under fives. Contrast this to Margaret Thatcher's cruel decision to abolish free milk for school-children aged seven to eleven, when she was Education Secretary int the early 1970s. He wanted a trong Britaiin but also wanted a social policy that will benefit the mass of the people and reduce the extremes of poverty and deprivation.
Under Thatcher no doubt Churchill would have been referred to as a "Wet"!
Churchill took a strong stand against the two great totalitarian evils of the 20th Century, Communism and Nazism. In 1919 when the Bolsheviks were committing massive atrocities across Russia and the Ukraine,Churchill said that he had no doubt that "of all the tyrannies in history the Bolshevik tyranny is the worst the most destructive and the most degrading".
The atrocities committed under Lenin and Trotsky were "incomparably more hideous, on a larger scale, and more numerous than any for which the Kaiser is responsible".
This was true.
not until the Nazi Holocaust did the world see anything comparable, and Churchill was clear that although Communism and Nazism were regarded as being on opposite sides of the political spectrum, their spirit and nature were identical.
As a testament to Churchill's great humanitarianism, he was always a staunch Zionist from the Balfour Declaration of 1917, knowing the justice of the cause of the long suffering and much persecuted Jewish people to a homeland of their own in the country where they originated.
He opposed the Attlee/Bevin post-war Labour government's hostility to the Jews of the Palestine Mandate and their cruel treatment of Jewish refugees wanting to retun to their homeland. He urged Britain in 1949 to recognize the newly re-established Jewish homeland of Israel.
In May, 1940, Churchill who had held almost every office of state, became Prime Minister at the age of Sixty Five. For the next five years, through a period of unparalleled disasters to achievement of final victory he rose to every occasion with unfaltering courage and matchless oratory. Thanks to the radio he was bale to speak directly to the people. and he gave Britain leadership such as she had never perhaps had in all her history.
As the war drew to an end he realized more clearly than Roosevelt , the nature of Stalin's interest in the countries of Eastern Europe, and it could be said he did what he could to contain Communist aggression.
This is the best biography of Churchill out there and highly recommended for those who want to gain a very real understanding of Churchill's careers and what he stood for.
Above all Churchill loved his country and served it all his life.
Merged review:
This compelling and comprehensive volume by the greatest living historian of the 20th century, is the definitive biography of Winston Churchill.
The book particularly stresses what a great humanitarian and opponent of all forms of tyranny, that Churchill was.
As a young Member of Parliament , Churchill voiced his anger at the massacre by the British expeditionary invasion force into Tibet of 600 unarmed Tibetan peasants by Colonel Younghusband : "Are there any people in the world so mean spirited not to resist under the circumstances which these poor Tibetans have been subjected. It has been their land for centuries and though they are only Asiatic liberty and home mean something to them".
He also denounced what he termed 'the disgusting butchery of the Natives' when a Zulu rebellion in Natal was brutally crushed by the British authorities in 1806, and the violent treatment of Chinese labourers in South Africa at the time.
He was an opponent of Socialism but, unlike Margaret Thatcher, did realize that there were times when government intervention to uplift the poorest sections of British society was necessary. He wanted a strong Britain but also wanted a social policy that would benefit the mass of the people and reduce the extremes of poverty and deprivation.
After World War II, Churchill stressed the constructive aspect and aims of Conservatism, and at his daughter Sarah's suggestion elaborated on the coalition governments Four Year Plan for social insurance, industrial industries insurance and a National Health Service. He announced that the conservatives would provide free milk for the 'very poor' and the under fives. Contrast this to Margaret Thatcher's cruel decision to abolish free milk for school-children aged seven to eleven, when she was Education Secretary int the early 1970s.
Under Thatcher no doubt Churchill would have been referred to as a "Wet"!
Churchill took a strong stand against the two great totalitarian evils of the 20th Century, Communism and Nazism. In 1919 when the Bolsheviks were committing massive atrocities across Russia and the Ukraine,Churchill said that he had no doubt that "of all the tyrannies in history the Bolshevik tyranny is the worst the most destructive and the most degrading".
The atrocities committed under Lenin and Trotsky were "incomparably more hideous, on a larger scale, and more numerous than any for which the Kaiser is responsible".
This was true.
not until the Nazi Holocaust did the world see anything comparable, and Churchill was clear that although Communism and Nazism were regarded as being on opposite sides of the political spectrum, their spirit and nature were identical.
As a testament to Churchill's great humanitarianism, he was always a staunch Zionist from the Balfour Declaration of 1917, knowing the justice of the cause of the long suffering and much persecuted Jewish people to a homeland of their own in the country where they originated.
He resolutely opposed the Attlee/Bevin government's ruthless policies against Jews in the Palestine Mandate and their cruel treatment of Jewish refugees from the Holocaust wishing to enter the Holy Land. And he urged Britain to recognize the newly re-established State of Israel in 1949.
In May, 1940, Churchill who had held almost every office of state, became Prime Minister at the age of Sixty Five. For the next five years, through a period of unparalleled disasters to achievement of final victory he rose to every occasion with unfaltering courage and matchless oratory. Thanks to the radio he was bale to speak directly to the people. and he gave Britain leadership such as she had never perhaps had in all her history.
As the war drew to an end he realized more clearly than Roosevelt , the nature of Stalin's interest in the countries of Eastern Europe, and it could be said he did what he could to contain Communist aggression.
This is the best biography of Churchill out there , and highly recommended for those who want to gain a very real understanding of Churchill's careers , and what he stood for.
Above all Churchill loved his country and served it all his life.
The book particularly stresses what a great humanitarian and opponent of all forms of tyranny, that Churchill was.
As a young Member of Parliament , Churchill voiced his anger at the massacre by the British expeditionary invasion force into Tibet of 600 unarmed Tibetan peasants by Colonel Younghusband : "Are there any people in the world so mean spirited not to resist under the circumstances which these poor Tibetans have been subjected. It has been their land for centuries and though they are only Asiatic liberty and home mean something to them".
He also denounced what he termed 'the disgusting butchery of the Natives' when a Zulu rebellion in Natal was brutally crushed by the British authorities in 1806, and the violent treatment of Chinese labourers in South Africa at the time.
He was an opponent of Socialism but, unlike Margaret Thatcher, did realize that there were times when government intervention to uplift the poorest sections of British society was necessary.
After World War II, Churchill stressed the constructive aspect and aims of Conservatism, and at his daughter Sarah's suggestion elaborated on the coalition governments Four Year Plan for social insurance, industrial industries insurance and a National Health Service. He announced that the conservatives would provide free milk for the 'very poor' and the under fives. Contrast this to Margaret Thatcher's cruel decision to abolish free milk for school-children aged seven to eleven, when she was Education Secretary int the early 1970s. He wanted a trong Britaiin but also wanted a social policy that will benefit the mass of the people and reduce the extremes of poverty and deprivation.
Under Thatcher no doubt Churchill would have been referred to as a "Wet"!
Churchill took a strong stand against the two great totalitarian evils of the 20th Century, Communism and Nazism. In 1919 when the Bolsheviks were committing massive atrocities across Russia and the Ukraine,Churchill said that he had no doubt that "of all the tyrannies in history the Bolshevik tyranny is the worst the most destructive and the most degrading".
The atrocities committed under Lenin and Trotsky were "incomparably more hideous, on a larger scale, and more numerous than any for which the Kaiser is responsible".
This was true.
not until the Nazi Holocaust did the world see anything comparable, and Churchill was clear that although Communism and Nazism were regarded as being on opposite sides of the political spectrum, their spirit and nature were identical.
As a testament to Churchill's great humanitarianism, he was always a staunch Zionist from the Balfour Declaration of 1917, knowing the justice of the cause of the long suffering and much persecuted Jewish people to a homeland of their own in the country where they originated.
He opposed the Attlee/Bevin post-war Labour government's hostility to the Jews of the Palestine Mandate and their cruel treatment of Jewish refugees wanting to retun to their homeland. He urged Britain in 1949 to recognize the newly re-established Jewish homeland of Israel.
In May, 1940, Churchill who had held almost every office of state, became Prime Minister at the age of Sixty Five. For the next five years, through a period of unparalleled disasters to achievement of final victory he rose to every occasion with unfaltering courage and matchless oratory. Thanks to the radio he was bale to speak directly to the people. and he gave Britain leadership such as she had never perhaps had in all her history.
As the war drew to an end he realized more clearly than Roosevelt , the nature of Stalin's interest in the countries of Eastern Europe, and it could be said he did what he could to contain Communist aggression.
This is the best biography of Churchill out there and highly recommended for those who want to gain a very real understanding of Churchill's careers and what he stood for.
Above all Churchill loved his country and served it all his life.
Merged review:
This compelling and comprehensive volume by the greatest living historian of the 20th century, is the definitive biography of Winston Churchill.
The book particularly stresses what a great humanitarian and opponent of all forms of tyranny, that Churchill was.
As a young Member of Parliament , Churchill voiced his anger at the massacre by the British expeditionary invasion force into Tibet of 600 unarmed Tibetan peasants by Colonel Younghusband : "Are there any people in the world so mean spirited not to resist under the circumstances which these poor Tibetans have been subjected. It has been their land for centuries and though they are only Asiatic liberty and home mean something to them".
He also denounced what he termed 'the disgusting butchery of the Natives' when a Zulu rebellion in Natal was brutally crushed by the British authorities in 1806, and the violent treatment of Chinese labourers in South Africa at the time.
He was an opponent of Socialism but, unlike Margaret Thatcher, did realize that there were times when government intervention to uplift the poorest sections of British society was necessary. He wanted a strong Britain but also wanted a social policy that would benefit the mass of the people and reduce the extremes of poverty and deprivation.
After World War II, Churchill stressed the constructive aspect and aims of Conservatism, and at his daughter Sarah's suggestion elaborated on the coalition governments Four Year Plan for social insurance, industrial industries insurance and a National Health Service. He announced that the conservatives would provide free milk for the 'very poor' and the under fives. Contrast this to Margaret Thatcher's cruel decision to abolish free milk for school-children aged seven to eleven, when she was Education Secretary int the early 1970s.
Under Thatcher no doubt Churchill would have been referred to as a "Wet"!
Churchill took a strong stand against the two great totalitarian evils of the 20th Century, Communism and Nazism. In 1919 when the Bolsheviks were committing massive atrocities across Russia and the Ukraine,Churchill said that he had no doubt that "of all the tyrannies in history the Bolshevik tyranny is the worst the most destructive and the most degrading".
The atrocities committed under Lenin and Trotsky were "incomparably more hideous, on a larger scale, and more numerous than any for which the Kaiser is responsible".
This was true.
not until the Nazi Holocaust did the world see anything comparable, and Churchill was clear that although Communism and Nazism were regarded as being on opposite sides of the political spectrum, their spirit and nature were identical.
As a testament to Churchill's great humanitarianism, he was always a staunch Zionist from the Balfour Declaration of 1917, knowing the justice of the cause of the long suffering and much persecuted Jewish people to a homeland of their own in the country where they originated.
He resolutely opposed the Attlee/Bevin government's ruthless policies against Jews in the Palestine Mandate and their cruel treatment of Jewish refugees from the Holocaust wishing to enter the Holy Land. And he urged Britain to recognize the newly re-established State of Israel in 1949.
In May, 1940, Churchill who had held almost every office of state, became Prime Minister at the age of Sixty Five. For the next five years, through a period of unparalleled disasters to achievement of final victory he rose to every occasion with unfaltering courage and matchless oratory. Thanks to the radio he was bale to speak directly to the people. and he gave Britain leadership such as she had never perhaps had in all her history.
As the war drew to an end he realized more clearly than Roosevelt , the nature of Stalin's interest in the countries of Eastern Europe, and it could be said he did what he could to contain Communist aggression.
This is the best biography of Churchill out there , and highly recommended for those who want to gain a very real understanding of Churchill's careers , and what he stood for.
Above all Churchill loved his country and served it all his life.
May 29, 2013
Ok so I am not done, but I need to talk about it all the same.
Turns out that I knew very little about Winston Churchill. His mother was a beautiful American socialite who married the 3rd son of the Duke of Marlborough, a family whose finances are regularly propped up by american heiresses (how very Downton Abbey!).
Churchill belongs to that category of those who triumph over childhoods miseries and failures. He was dumped in a boarding school at the age of 7 and rarely saw his parents. He was sickly, difficult and stupid. His education path was turned towards the army because his parents didn't think he was smart enough to be a lawyer!
After 3 failed attempts he passes the entrance exam into officer's training for the calvary (he wasn't smart enough for the infantry... Who Knew?). His father dies from sphyllis and his last letter to his son berated him for his many failures.
THEN... all of a sudden this quiet sullen boy turns into a super confident(arrogant) super hero! He fights in battles in India, and South Africa. He is regularly the hero of the battle and saves the day. He spurns death regularly. His exploits lead him to journalism and then memoirs. He is taken a prisoner of war and escapes by hiding in a mine shaft for 5 days and then jumping on to a train. By the age of 25 he is the most sought after lecturer in England (despite his lisp), he has written 5 books and has been voted into the House of Commons. His command of the english language is suddenly brilliant. (What is it about the loss of aristocracy and the crossing of a continent that has depleted our own english abilities. No offense but can an american ever out write the english?)
This is my dilemmia which the biographer neatly passes over. What the heck happened to make the change in him? Possible solutions 1. His dad & governess die. 2. He gets a horse. 3. He was born for battle. Any better ideas?
Well the first part of the biography is reassurance to every parent who ever wondered is their kid can make good.:)
Turns out that I knew very little about Winston Churchill. His mother was a beautiful American socialite who married the 3rd son of the Duke of Marlborough, a family whose finances are regularly propped up by american heiresses (how very Downton Abbey!).
Churchill belongs to that category of those who triumph over childhoods miseries and failures. He was dumped in a boarding school at the age of 7 and rarely saw his parents. He was sickly, difficult and stupid. His education path was turned towards the army because his parents didn't think he was smart enough to be a lawyer!
After 3 failed attempts he passes the entrance exam into officer's training for the calvary (he wasn't smart enough for the infantry... Who Knew?). His father dies from sphyllis and his last letter to his son berated him for his many failures.
THEN... all of a sudden this quiet sullen boy turns into a super confident(arrogant) super hero! He fights in battles in India, and South Africa. He is regularly the hero of the battle and saves the day. He spurns death regularly. His exploits lead him to journalism and then memoirs. He is taken a prisoner of war and escapes by hiding in a mine shaft for 5 days and then jumping on to a train. By the age of 25 he is the most sought after lecturer in England (despite his lisp), he has written 5 books and has been voted into the House of Commons. His command of the english language is suddenly brilliant. (What is it about the loss of aristocracy and the crossing of a continent that has depleted our own english abilities. No offense but can an american ever out write the english?)
This is my dilemmia which the biographer neatly passes over. What the heck happened to make the change in him? Possible solutions 1. His dad & governess die. 2. He gets a horse. 3. He was born for battle. Any better ideas?
Well the first part of the biography is reassurance to every parent who ever wondered is their kid can make good.:)
May 10, 2018
I read the last chapter of this book (which took me over HALF A YEAR to read) while smoking a cigar. It felt necessary.
---
For a time, Great Britain stood alone against Hitler's Germany. As the mainland of Europe crumbled before the Nazi advance, the British held firm, resolved never to surrender, and Churchill, as Prime Minister, declared that "We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets."
But there was more to the speech than this frequently-quoted snippet. Referencing Churchill's notes during this period, Gilbert provides the rest of the speech, which Churchill had decided to scrub in the final minutes before his address to the House of Commons.
It continues: "We will fight the enemy back, street by street, until we have pushed them to the sea. When we have beat them back across the Channel, and they have retreated back to the continent, we will pursue them and we will fight them still. We will persevere. They will develop rockets and escape into the Great Unknown of space. We will fight in space, in the nothingness that exists between the stars, though the vacuum and lack of oxygen may impede our abilities. We will..."
There's actually more that wouldn't fit here, but that's why this book is 1077 pages. Some say the Soviets may have launched the first man into space, but it was Churchill who first gave their scientists the idea when they heard this speech.
Frankly, I'm a bit of a skeptic when it comes to the 'Great Man' narrative of history, which almost always over-represents the impact a single person has on events of a global scale. I like to think that we would have figured gravity out in time without Newton, that the Chinese weren't the only people who could come up with paper, Dewey wasn't the only guy who knew how to put books on a shelf, and that a three-volume epic fantasy saga in which the main character accomplishes nothing of note in the first two volumes would have eventually been attempted by someone other than Patrick Rothfuss.
I suppose it's possible we may have avoided World War 2 if Hitler had been admitted to art school, or that the allies would have ended up winning somehow with a cabinet that favored brokering peace with Hitler after France's defeat, but I have to say that in this case, I'm really not so sure. Things were bad.
The commonly accepted series of historical events goes something like this: Churchill becomes Prime Minister in the early stages of WW2, stands defiantly against a Nazi Germany that was consolidating her control over the rest of Europe, and proceeds to hold the line until first Russia and then the US enter the war. The Allies win.
While that's basically true, Gilbert gives the background that's necessary to truly understand Churchill's unique perspective, in the lead-up to the war:
Churchill was in the minority in advocating for a lighter touch when pushing for Germany to pay reparations in the aftermath of WW1 (anticipating that overly-harsh reparations would lead to a great deal of German resentment), one of the few who saw Hitler's rise to power as a grave threat to peace in Europe, and in the minority again when he believed that resistance, not appeasement, was the correct response to Hitler's aggression in the prelude to the war (remilitarization of the Rhineland, annexation of Austria, and occupation of Czechoslovakia).
As Germany rearmed, Churchill pushed the government to maintain its aerial and naval superiority as an MP, but was ignored by Chamberlain, the prime minister at the beginning of the war. When war broke out, it was too late. It would take years for the British to catch back up in aircraft production.
Despite having been virtually ignored for a decade after WW1, and taking over as PM for a country that was isolated, outgunned, and not even sure they wanted to fight, Churchill proceeded to evacuate the British army from Dunkirk, prepare the British for an expected invasion, win the Battle of Britain, negotiate Lend Lease Act with Roosevelt, and ultimately win the war, before being voted out of office just two months after Victory in Europe.
Outside the significant portion of the book dedicated to WW2, I also learned things about him that were entirely new to me: his hobby of painting landscapes, the fact that he won a nobel prize for literature, and the fact that his father died of syphilis.
As for the negatives - it's obvious that Gilbert is a huge Churchill fan, so there's somewhat of a halo effect around his account of Churchill's life. He drank heavily, smoked excessively, and seemed to be somewhat lax about his finances. One of his children committed suicide, and almost all three suffered from depression or alcoholism. His relationship with his children is left largely unexplored (or perhaps he was pretty distant from them, which is just as important to cover).
Churchill was extremely ambitious, politically. Other than the fact that he dragged his heels for years before finally stepping down - at 80, as his protege Anthony Eden grew increasingly impatient - there's not quite enough here about his constant run-ins with party leaders when he was not in the cabinet, or the ramifications of his having switched party associations from Conservative, to Liberal, and back to Conservative. There are multiple instances where he finally joins the government as a minister after years of waiting on the sidelines, only to be threatening to resign over one issue or another. But maybe this is just how British politics work, and my ignorance is showing.
But his great qualities shone through as I slogged through all 1000+ pages of this monster. It's easy to see that Churchill was an extremely courageous man; a gifted speaker, and hard worker, with the tenacity of a bulldog (which his wife lovingly called him at times). He was realistic when sizing up his opponent, and able to inspire his country with his gritty brand of optimism in their eventual victory. When that victory was achieved, he was gracious in victory.
Plus he invented the rocket. What a guy.
---
For a time, Great Britain stood alone against Hitler's Germany. As the mainland of Europe crumbled before the Nazi advance, the British held firm, resolved never to surrender, and Churchill, as Prime Minister, declared that "We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets."
But there was more to the speech than this frequently-quoted snippet. Referencing Churchill's notes during this period, Gilbert provides the rest of the speech, which Churchill had decided to scrub in the final minutes before his address to the House of Commons.
It continues: "We will fight the enemy back, street by street, until we have pushed them to the sea. When we have beat them back across the Channel, and they have retreated back to the continent, we will pursue them and we will fight them still. We will persevere. They will develop rockets and escape into the Great Unknown of space. We will fight in space, in the nothingness that exists between the stars, though the vacuum and lack of oxygen may impede our abilities. We will..."
There's actually more that wouldn't fit here, but that's why this book is 1077 pages. Some say the Soviets may have launched the first man into space, but it was Churchill who first gave their scientists the idea when they heard this speech.
Frankly, I'm a bit of a skeptic when it comes to the 'Great Man' narrative of history, which almost always over-represents the impact a single person has on events of a global scale. I like to think that we would have figured gravity out in time without Newton, that the Chinese weren't the only people who could come up with paper, Dewey wasn't the only guy who knew how to put books on a shelf, and that a three-volume epic fantasy saga in which the main character accomplishes nothing of note in the first two volumes would have eventually been attempted by someone other than Patrick Rothfuss.
I suppose it's possible we may have avoided World War 2 if Hitler had been admitted to art school, or that the allies would have ended up winning somehow with a cabinet that favored brokering peace with Hitler after France's defeat, but I have to say that in this case, I'm really not so sure. Things were bad.
The commonly accepted series of historical events goes something like this: Churchill becomes Prime Minister in the early stages of WW2, stands defiantly against a Nazi Germany that was consolidating her control over the rest of Europe, and proceeds to hold the line until first Russia and then the US enter the war. The Allies win.
While that's basically true, Gilbert gives the background that's necessary to truly understand Churchill's unique perspective, in the lead-up to the war:
Churchill was in the minority in advocating for a lighter touch when pushing for Germany to pay reparations in the aftermath of WW1 (anticipating that overly-harsh reparations would lead to a great deal of German resentment), one of the few who saw Hitler's rise to power as a grave threat to peace in Europe, and in the minority again when he believed that resistance, not appeasement, was the correct response to Hitler's aggression in the prelude to the war (remilitarization of the Rhineland, annexation of Austria, and occupation of Czechoslovakia).
As Germany rearmed, Churchill pushed the government to maintain its aerial and naval superiority as an MP, but was ignored by Chamberlain, the prime minister at the beginning of the war. When war broke out, it was too late. It would take years for the British to catch back up in aircraft production.
Despite having been virtually ignored for a decade after WW1, and taking over as PM for a country that was isolated, outgunned, and not even sure they wanted to fight, Churchill proceeded to evacuate the British army from Dunkirk, prepare the British for an expected invasion, win the Battle of Britain, negotiate Lend Lease Act with Roosevelt, and ultimately win the war, before being voted out of office just two months after Victory in Europe.
Outside the significant portion of the book dedicated to WW2, I also learned things about him that were entirely new to me: his hobby of painting landscapes, the fact that he won a nobel prize for literature, and the fact that his father died of syphilis.
As for the negatives - it's obvious that Gilbert is a huge Churchill fan, so there's somewhat of a halo effect around his account of Churchill's life. He drank heavily, smoked excessively, and seemed to be somewhat lax about his finances. One of his children committed suicide, and almost all three suffered from depression or alcoholism. His relationship with his children is left largely unexplored (or perhaps he was pretty distant from them, which is just as important to cover).
Churchill was extremely ambitious, politically. Other than the fact that he dragged his heels for years before finally stepping down - at 80, as his protege Anthony Eden grew increasingly impatient - there's not quite enough here about his constant run-ins with party leaders when he was not in the cabinet, or the ramifications of his having switched party associations from Conservative, to Liberal, and back to Conservative. There are multiple instances where he finally joins the government as a minister after years of waiting on the sidelines, only to be threatening to resign over one issue or another. But maybe this is just how British politics work, and my ignorance is showing.
But his great qualities shone through as I slogged through all 1000+ pages of this monster. It's easy to see that Churchill was an extremely courageous man; a gifted speaker, and hard worker, with the tenacity of a bulldog (which his wife lovingly called him at times). He was realistic when sizing up his opponent, and able to inspire his country with his gritty brand of optimism in their eventual victory. When that victory was achieved, he was gracious in victory.
Plus he invented the rocket. What a guy.
August 27, 2012
I've long wanted to read the biography of Winston Churchill, one of the true giants of modern history and I would be hard pressed to find a better one-volume biography than this one. The author, Martin Gilbert, is known as Churchill's official biographer so there are few people who know the facts behind the man as well as Gilbert does.
This is a huge book, somehow much larger even than its 959 small-print pages plus maps and lengthy index. And yet it is amazing that this one man's life can fit into so "few" pages. Churchill was a prolific author in his own right, a detailed chronicler of the events of the 20th century, and author of thousands of letters to friends, family, and colleagues. So there is lots and lots of source material. In fact, for every event in which Churchill was involved, it is possible to present his own words, arguments and his true intentions. Mr Gilbert is to be commended not only for writing such a poignant biography of this amazing man but also for managing to boil down so many facts in such an eloquent way.
This is not a book to read in a week or two but rather absorbed over quite a long time. This is a full and rounded picture of Churchill's life, in both its personal and political aspects. I consider myself to be an amateur historian and am familiar with most of the events encountered in this book, but to experience them again through Churchill's eyes, and indeed his very words, is to understand them on a whole new level.
Every time I read a great biography, I am drawn to read others that relate to it. When I read it lead me to and now to this one and others. Unfortunately that web doesn't get smaller and so now I feel compelled to seek out biographies of Patton, Roosevelt, Omar Bradley, and perhaps even Stalin and some of the lesser known participants in the shaping of the 20th century. I already have ready to go.
Highly recommended for those who have some patience and perseverance to appreciate the scope of a biography such as this.
This is a huge book, somehow much larger even than its 959 small-print pages plus maps and lengthy index. And yet it is amazing that this one man's life can fit into so "few" pages. Churchill was a prolific author in his own right, a detailed chronicler of the events of the 20th century, and author of thousands of letters to friends, family, and colleagues. So there is lots and lots of source material. In fact, for every event in which Churchill was involved, it is possible to present his own words, arguments and his true intentions. Mr Gilbert is to be commended not only for writing such a poignant biography of this amazing man but also for managing to boil down so many facts in such an eloquent way.
This is not a book to read in a week or two but rather absorbed over quite a long time. This is a full and rounded picture of Churchill's life, in both its personal and political aspects. I consider myself to be an amateur historian and am familiar with most of the events encountered in this book, but to experience them again through Churchill's eyes, and indeed his very words, is to understand them on a whole new level.
Every time I read a great biography, I am drawn to read others that relate to it. When I read it lead me to and now to this one and others. Unfortunately that web doesn't get smaller and so now I feel compelled to seek out biographies of Patton, Roosevelt, Omar Bradley, and perhaps even Stalin and some of the lesser known participants in the shaping of the 20th century. I already have ready to go.
Highly recommended for those who have some patience and perseverance to appreciate the scope of a biography such as this.
March 2, 2018
I need to discover more about the term 'official biographer.' I assume full access to the subject's personal documents. Is the tacit tradeoff that content is limited to facts? This bio caused me to ponder official biographer-ology. If it hadn't been Winston as the subject, this style of writing would have been � dare I say it? � boring. Truly, it was anything but boring.
Having just read Paul Johnson's abbreviated Churchill bio, replete with ripe commentary and articulated opinion, Gilbert's felt like a compendium of quotes and diary entries in chronological order. Extensive and entertaining, but clinical. After Manchester's The Last Lion, a crusty, seed-filled, full-flavored wheat bread, this was white bread. Not difficult to chew, nor undelicious, nor a slog to read. It just didn't score high on zest.
Still, I gave it four stars. Well, 3.5 rounded up.
Here's what I loved: At the top of each page was the year on the left hand side and, on the right, Æ T ##, from Latin aetatis, at the age of. This was immensely helpful. And Churchill's age is almost a character of the book. Each birthday is a tent peg for the narrative. It will be a while before I forget November 30. The multitude of maps and a full index were excellent. I used them both extensively while I read.
One area where Martin Gilbert, a Jewish historian, revealed his worldview was in Churchill's friendship with the Jews. I was delighted to notice it. I learned that Churchill, a Zionist, suggested bringing Israel into the British Commonwealth.
All those comments aside, Churchill is an astonishing character; his words and life are worth the time and effort to read. So many words could describe him: puckish, imp, cunning, complicated, emotional, self-absorbed, a big thinker, genius, personable, imaginative, forceful. I copied 41 pages of quotes (OCD much?) into my commonplace journal. His storied life is an epic of worldwide involvement. His wordsmithing is sustenance to my writer-soul.
From here, I plan to read Churchill himself. The six volume WW2 memoirs are waiting; I'm eager to re-read History of the English-Speaking Peoples.
Having just read Paul Johnson's abbreviated Churchill bio, replete with ripe commentary and articulated opinion, Gilbert's felt like a compendium of quotes and diary entries in chronological order. Extensive and entertaining, but clinical. After Manchester's The Last Lion, a crusty, seed-filled, full-flavored wheat bread, this was white bread. Not difficult to chew, nor undelicious, nor a slog to read. It just didn't score high on zest.
Still, I gave it four stars. Well, 3.5 rounded up.
Here's what I loved: At the top of each page was the year on the left hand side and, on the right, Æ T ##, from Latin aetatis, at the age of. This was immensely helpful. And Churchill's age is almost a character of the book. Each birthday is a tent peg for the narrative. It will be a while before I forget November 30. The multitude of maps and a full index were excellent. I used them both extensively while I read.
One area where Martin Gilbert, a Jewish historian, revealed his worldview was in Churchill's friendship with the Jews. I was delighted to notice it. I learned that Churchill, a Zionist, suggested bringing Israel into the British Commonwealth.
All those comments aside, Churchill is an astonishing character; his words and life are worth the time and effort to read. So many words could describe him: puckish, imp, cunning, complicated, emotional, self-absorbed, a big thinker, genius, personable, imaginative, forceful. I copied 41 pages of quotes (OCD much?) into my commonplace journal. His storied life is an epic of worldwide involvement. His wordsmithing is sustenance to my writer-soul.
From here, I plan to read Churchill himself. The six volume WW2 memoirs are waiting; I'm eager to re-read History of the English-Speaking Peoples.
September 9, 2018
More hero worship and we are told this is the full facts about the man who is a hero to the Western world.
A warmonger, murderer, imperialist, but lets not mention all that. Oh, guess what? They didn't.
Continue worshiping.
A warmonger, murderer, imperialist, but lets not mention all that. Oh, guess what? They didn't.
Continue worshiping.
October 7, 2014
Martin Gilbert's biography of Sir Winston Churchill is a straightforward account of the life of one of the great (if not the greatest) statesmen in British history. Considering how long British history goes, that is quite a thing to be. His career was long and enduring; it began in the reign of Queen Victoria and ended during the reign of Victoria's great-great-granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II. During his career he would go from being a conservative to a liberal to a conservative again. In the end he would prove to be just as much a riddle wrapped in an enigma as he proclaimed Russia was.
A commoner of noble blood Winston Churchill was the grandson of the 7th Duke of Marlborough. His father was Lord Randolph Churchill a member of British House of Commons who rose all the way up to Chancellor of the Exchequer, and fell due to his own missteps. Young Churchill would earn a commission in the British Army and fight in India. He would also go to war as a correspondent reporting on the Boer War to the press, while simultaneously getting captured and having an adventurous escape.
His accomplishments as a writer would equal his political accomplishments. His works would include but was not limited to a History of the English Speaking Peoples; his own accounts of World War I and II, and a biography of his famous ancestor, John Churchill the 1st Duke of Marlborough.
Churchill would enter the Commons as a member of the Conservative Party, his father's party, but would switch to the Liberals. He would rise through the Liberal ranks holding various offices in Liberal governments. One of his best, although to him distasteful and to the world forgotten, was his work in the Home Office. There he would introduce many reforms most notably of the British prisons.
In the early years of World War I he was in a prime position as First Lord of the Admiralty but during a low point in the war with blame flying he lost his job. So his response is to go and command a regiment in the actual fighting. It is at this and several other moments in the book that I am consistently drawing parallels to the career of President Theodore Roosevelt.
The one drawback of the book is while it does successfully detail Churchill's career it negates to bring to life his world. Churchill's career spans the Victorian Age to the Cold War yet these periods do not come alive for us. When we met other actors from Franklin Roosevelt, Neville Chamberlain, Adolph Hitler, George V, or Joseph Stalin, we see them as Churchill does. Gilbert makes no effort to explain who these people are on their own terms. The author works with the assumption that the reader knows who everyone is. That is fine in regards to President Roosevelt but I knew of very little of Anthony Eden going into this and did not learn anything new about him.
Nevertheless, some things I did take away were the fall of relevancy of David Lloyd George and the disgrace of Stanley Baldwin. After the First World War, Lloyd George was one of the most powerful men in the world by the end of next decade he did not even matter--although he has one more fleeting moment of greatness when Chamberlain falls. It is amazing how a powerful man and party can just disappear. Then there was the case of Baldwin.
Prime Minister Baldwin more concerned over the King than Hitler
Stanley Baldwin, although Britain does rearm, the progress is slow and the Prime Minster seems to be more concerned with who the King is marrying then what the Germans are doing. When the King, Edward VIII is determined to marry who he wants, Wallis Simpson, the Prime Minster seeks to drive him from the throne. What might have been considered outright treason Baldwin saw as normal behavior, he gets the King off the throne and retires himself before the coronation of the new King, George VI.
When Baldwin leaves Neville Chamberlain, a prime minister whose legacy is forever linked to the failed policy of appeasement, replaces him. Churchill is brought back into government and before long is running the entire program. In the early days of his premiership Churchill and Britain stood alone, but with Hitler's blunder in invading the Soviet Union and the Japanese blunder in attacking the United States, Churchill became a member of great triumvirate that would help bring the allies to clear and absolute victory.
As the Prime Minister, Churchill was a hands-on manager. He appointed himself his own minister of defense and simultaneously arranged many face-to-face meetings with his allies, Roosevelt and Stalin, doing his best to build personal relationships that would enable them to work together and defeat the Axis powers.
After the war the electorate threw out the conservatives (with Churchill) out of power despite Churchill himself being personally popular. He would have to be an observer in the post-war world he had worked so hard to bring about. Churchill would continue to focus on his literary works while leading the opposition. When returned to power in 1950 Churchill would try to use his second premiership to bring a rapprochement between the United States and the Soviet Union. That would end only in disappointment. The career of the man who led his country through war and coined the phrase the `Iron Curtin' while also dreaming of a United States of Europe, would come to a more quite end of resignation and insufficient replacement, as Eden did not last long in power.
Martin Gilbert gives us a very 101 look into the life of a great statesman. As I earlier noted this book could have explored his world a little more. I must also add I love the capitalization in this book. I much prefer the style of Prime Minster of the United Kingdom to prime minister of the United Kingdom. Gilbert gives a good start into the life of Winston Churchill.
A commoner of noble blood Winston Churchill was the grandson of the 7th Duke of Marlborough. His father was Lord Randolph Churchill a member of British House of Commons who rose all the way up to Chancellor of the Exchequer, and fell due to his own missteps. Young Churchill would earn a commission in the British Army and fight in India. He would also go to war as a correspondent reporting on the Boer War to the press, while simultaneously getting captured and having an adventurous escape.
His accomplishments as a writer would equal his political accomplishments. His works would include but was not limited to a History of the English Speaking Peoples; his own accounts of World War I and II, and a biography of his famous ancestor, John Churchill the 1st Duke of Marlborough.
Churchill would enter the Commons as a member of the Conservative Party, his father's party, but would switch to the Liberals. He would rise through the Liberal ranks holding various offices in Liberal governments. One of his best, although to him distasteful and to the world forgotten, was his work in the Home Office. There he would introduce many reforms most notably of the British prisons.
In the early years of World War I he was in a prime position as First Lord of the Admiralty but during a low point in the war with blame flying he lost his job. So his response is to go and command a regiment in the actual fighting. It is at this and several other moments in the book that I am consistently drawing parallels to the career of President Theodore Roosevelt.
The one drawback of the book is while it does successfully detail Churchill's career it negates to bring to life his world. Churchill's career spans the Victorian Age to the Cold War yet these periods do not come alive for us. When we met other actors from Franklin Roosevelt, Neville Chamberlain, Adolph Hitler, George V, or Joseph Stalin, we see them as Churchill does. Gilbert makes no effort to explain who these people are on their own terms. The author works with the assumption that the reader knows who everyone is. That is fine in regards to President Roosevelt but I knew of very little of Anthony Eden going into this and did not learn anything new about him.
Nevertheless, some things I did take away were the fall of relevancy of David Lloyd George and the disgrace of Stanley Baldwin. After the First World War, Lloyd George was one of the most powerful men in the world by the end of next decade he did not even matter--although he has one more fleeting moment of greatness when Chamberlain falls. It is amazing how a powerful man and party can just disappear. Then there was the case of Baldwin.
Prime Minister Baldwin more concerned over the King than Hitler
Stanley Baldwin, although Britain does rearm, the progress is slow and the Prime Minster seems to be more concerned with who the King is marrying then what the Germans are doing. When the King, Edward VIII is determined to marry who he wants, Wallis Simpson, the Prime Minster seeks to drive him from the throne. What might have been considered outright treason Baldwin saw as normal behavior, he gets the King off the throne and retires himself before the coronation of the new King, George VI.
When Baldwin leaves Neville Chamberlain, a prime minister whose legacy is forever linked to the failed policy of appeasement, replaces him. Churchill is brought back into government and before long is running the entire program. In the early days of his premiership Churchill and Britain stood alone, but with Hitler's blunder in invading the Soviet Union and the Japanese blunder in attacking the United States, Churchill became a member of great triumvirate that would help bring the allies to clear and absolute victory.
As the Prime Minister, Churchill was a hands-on manager. He appointed himself his own minister of defense and simultaneously arranged many face-to-face meetings with his allies, Roosevelt and Stalin, doing his best to build personal relationships that would enable them to work together and defeat the Axis powers.
After the war the electorate threw out the conservatives (with Churchill) out of power despite Churchill himself being personally popular. He would have to be an observer in the post-war world he had worked so hard to bring about. Churchill would continue to focus on his literary works while leading the opposition. When returned to power in 1950 Churchill would try to use his second premiership to bring a rapprochement between the United States and the Soviet Union. That would end only in disappointment. The career of the man who led his country through war and coined the phrase the `Iron Curtin' while also dreaming of a United States of Europe, would come to a more quite end of resignation and insufficient replacement, as Eden did not last long in power.
Martin Gilbert gives us a very 101 look into the life of a great statesman. As I earlier noted this book could have explored his world a little more. I must also add I love the capitalization in this book. I much prefer the style of Prime Minster of the United Kingdom to prime minister of the United Kingdom. Gilbert gives a good start into the life of Winston Churchill.
December 4, 2018
Foi uma leitura demorada, mas não por ser aborrecida. Foi um daqueles livros em que não queremos chegar ao fim. É um livro extraordinário, sobre um dos homens mais extraordinários de sempre, escrito por um autor/historiador fantástico. Não me parece uma biografia adequada para todos, já que é muito exaustiva e pormenorizada, mas para quem procure conhecer a vida e as muitas facetas do Churchill, é a obra indicada. Não é livro que o santifique, mas que, nas suas falhas, o humaniza. Quanto mais leio do Martin Gilbert, mais quero ler. Quanto mais sei sobre Winston Churchill, mais quero saber.
March 17, 2019
It was more of a chronicle than a history. It recounted a list of facts and events that happened during Churchill's long career, but despite all the pedantic ideas that it dwelt on I never really thought that I was getting insight into Churchill's deeply cherished beliefs or ideals. I wish I'd have read a different biography.
August 11, 2023
Stop five of my world-history-through-biographies tour.
Winston Churchill seemed to be someone who everyone disliked by default -- and not just because he was both a politician and a journalist -- yet he earned their respect and admiration when given a chance. He was a weird dude, but he was always right. It was fun reading of his parliamentary performances, often described as a 'a volcano roaring skyward in a whirlwind of sparks' while he blew out opposing parties.
He liked to do this thing where he constantly assigned animal-related nicknames to people. Most notably, his wife 'pussy cat' and his children 'kittens.' Here are a few stats from across this book backing up this habit:
- Cats (13 instances)
- Dogs (13 instances)
- Birds (9 instances)
- Crocodiles (6 instances)
A quote that stuck with me from the beginning of his life was:
That's largely how I felt reading this.
I believe some of said virtues are best exemplified in these two cigar-centric examples:
Fact: this is the first biography I have read that was not cut short by an untimely death!
Winston Churchill seemed to be someone who everyone disliked by default -- and not just because he was both a politician and a journalist -- yet he earned their respect and admiration when given a chance. He was a weird dude, but he was always right. It was fun reading of his parliamentary performances, often described as a 'a volcano roaring skyward in a whirlwind of sparks' while he blew out opposing parties.
He liked to do this thing where he constantly assigned animal-related nicknames to people. Most notably, his wife 'pussy cat' and his children 'kittens.' Here are a few stats from across this book backing up this habit:
- Cats (13 instances)
- Dogs (13 instances)
- Birds (9 instances)
- Crocodiles (6 instances)
A quote that stuck with me from the beginning of his life was:
'the first time you meet Winston, you see all his faults, and the rest of your life you spend in discovering his virtues.'
That's largely how I felt reading this.
I believe some of said virtues are best exemplified in these two cigar-centric examples:
"For the first time in his life Churchill would be flying in an unpressurised cabin at 15,000 feet, in an American Liberator bomber. To get used to the experience he went to Farnborough late on the evening of July 31 for a special oxygen mask test, asking the expert who would accompany him if the mask could be adapted so that he could smoke his cigar while wearing it. The mask was duly adapted."
"He had been told that the King could not allow drinking or smoking in his presence. Far from accepting the Arab custom, he took an independent line: 'I was the host and I said that if it was his religion that made him say such things, my religion prescribed as an absolute sacred ritual smoking cigars and drinking alcohol before, after, and if need be during, all meals and the intervals between them.'"
Fact: this is the first biography I have read that was not cut short by an untimely death!
July 6, 2023
Потужна книга у всіх сенсах. Починаючи від дуже солідних габаритів (під 1000 сторінок великого формату та досить дрібного розміру шрифта) і закінчуючи змістом. А як могло бути інакше, якщо мова йде про того самого Черчилля. Постать, яка стала символом епохи достойна такого фоліанту.
Не зважаючи на великий об'єм книги назвати її докладною не підніметься рука, адже виклад подій без води і доволі стиснутий, лише справді важливі моменти. Просто життя Черчилля непересічне та насичене подіями. Читається легко та захопливо, як пригодницький серіал про Джеймса Бонда - ніби й багато серій, а відірватися неможливо, затягує вир подій. І все це не вигадка, а справжнє життя людини.
Черчилль справді унікальний - обдарований природою та наполегливий у праці, ніколи не зупинявся. Його талант неперевершеного оповідача зробив його тим, хто писав історію ХХ століття. Світ яким ми його знаємо, створено його руками. Проте він не ніколи не був стороннім оповідачем, а з юних літ прагнув бути в самому епіцентрі подій. Сміливість привела його не лише на вершину світу, але й допомогала приймати важкі рішення у найбільш скрутні часи.
Ще однією визначою рисою є його неймовірне бачення майбутнього, він настільки точно передбачував події, що це захопливо і моторошно водночас. Ця здатність говорить про його глибоке розуміння процесів та фантастичне уміння бачити неочевидне на перший погляд.
В книзі ви знайдете багато цікавих деталей та спостережень, що змусять вас переглянути свій погляд на багато подій. Зокрема несподівані подробиці Другої світової війни.
Рекомендую читати всім, хто хоче розуміти що відбувається в сучасному світі, бо корені сьогоднішніх проблем проростають з тих часів. І краще про все дізнаватися з перших уст, а не з переказів переказів тлумачів історії.
Не зважаючи на великий об'єм книги назвати її докладною не підніметься рука, адже виклад подій без води і доволі стиснутий, лише справді важливі моменти. Просто життя Черчилля непересічне та насичене подіями. Читається легко та захопливо, як пригодницький серіал про Джеймса Бонда - ніби й багато серій, а відірватися неможливо, затягує вир подій. І все це не вигадка, а справжнє життя людини.
Черчилль справді унікальний - обдарований природою та наполегливий у праці, ніколи не зупинявся. Його талант неперевершеного оповідача зробив його тим, хто писав історію ХХ століття. Світ яким ми його знаємо, створено його руками. Проте він не ніколи не був стороннім оповідачем, а з юних літ прагнув бути в самому епіцентрі подій. Сміливість привела його не лише на вершину світу, але й допомогала приймати важкі рішення у найбільш скрутні часи.
Ще однією визначою рисою є його неймовірне бачення майбутнього, він настільки точно передбачував події, що це захопливо і моторошно водночас. Ця здатність говорить про його глибоке розуміння процесів та фантастичне уміння бачити неочевидне на перший погляд.
В книзі ви знайдете багато цікавих деталей та спостережень, що змусять вас переглянути свій погляд на багато подій. Зокрема несподівані подробиці Другої світової війни.
Рекомендую читати всім, хто хоче розуміти що відбувається в сучасному світі, бо корені сьогоднішніх проблем проростають з тих часів. І краще про все дізнаватися з перших уст, а не з переказів переказів тлумачів історії.
January 18, 2018
I think I was about 400 pages into this 1000 page plus book when it occurred t me that even if his World War II premiership hadn’t happened, Winston Churchill would have still been a fascinating figure. Born during the reign of Queen Victoria, he served in the British Army, fought in what is now Afghanistan and in Africa in the Boer War (where he was taken prisoner and then escaped) achieved fame as a journalist and a writer of history, served in Parliament for six decades (began as a Conservative, switched to the Liberal Party for 20 years, then switched back to the Conservatives) and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. Wow, what a life. But of course, he did become Prime Minister during the early dark days of the Second World War and he led his nation as they stood virtually alone against the Nazis. And that heroic accomplishment is why we’re still reading about him in 2018.
This is a lengthy but very readable account of the life of Winston Churchill. It is well worth reading and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in history, particularly history of Europe and the United Kingdom from the late Nineteenth Century through the beginnings of Cold War.
This is a lengthy but very readable account of the life of Winston Churchill. It is well worth reading and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in history, particularly history of Europe and the United Kingdom from the late Nineteenth Century through the beginnings of Cold War.
December 8, 2024
Tremendous read which feels very unique in a way that Gilbert incorporates so many Churchill’s own words, notes and speeches. You do walk with him for decades and decades, getting the feeling of this energy and passion which characterized Winston. At times it feels like his journey could be endless, since there are so many things he conquered, so many different times he lived through. But all comes to an end, and Gilbert winds up perfectly. I would say that a reader might greatly benefit from reading “Mirrors of Greatness� alongside this account, because it shines a much needed light on his relationships with contemporaries � adoration of Lloyd George and rough quarrels with De Gaulle for example. But that’s supplementary. This book also really puts him forward as a master of administration and a very progressive social thinker, for his times. All in all, one of the best biographies I’ve read. A must.
July 7, 2024
Розкішна книга. Спочатку і дуже довго здається, що там все - занадто, занадто листів, занадто подробиць, занадто багато уваги до деталей, а коли доходить до парламентської діяльності Черчилля, то хочеться, щоб так детально розповідалось про рішення всіх, дотичних до прийняття важливих рішень, осіб.
September 23, 2022
The life story of one of the great leaders of the 20th century. The book is very detailed. The comments and thoughts of him and his close circle are also included in the work.
December 14, 2012
Books this big, have to be life changing. Just getting through them changes your life in some small way. He was such a fascinating man. I think he is the kind that would drive a wife crazy, but he did so much for his country. There were times I could not put it down, it was so fascinating. There were times I had to force myself to keep going, and had to make myself keep reading. Of course, I felt like I learned a lot. That is the beauty of our book group. You read things you probably never would have found the time for. It makes you stretch and branch out to be sure.
I dated a Winston. Maybe I would have been nicer to him, had I read this first!
One thing I loved was they said he knew how to live in the moment. He had an incredible capacity to get things done.
Fave quotes: 887 Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.
To Hitler: pg 703: You do your worst, and we will do our best. (Let every one kill a Hun.)
He always wrote on his items for work: Action this Day. It would be resolved and worked on that day!683
Positive comments to France page 681
His speeches: 627: Never in their experience had they seen a single speech so change the temper of the House.
608 His joie di vivre. The fact that he could remain so positive and bubbly.
505 He talks about his personality and his poisoned arrows.
The rich 493: Cultured people are merely the glittering scum which floats upon the deep river of production.
492: His other evidence for a Deity was the existence of Lenin and Trotsky-for whom a hell was needed. I laughed out loud when I read this.
385 A real gem in a crisis (Wilson)
342 I have never known an officer take such pains to inspire confidence or to gain confidence, recalled MacDavid. Indeed he inspired confidence in gaining it.
279 early confidence in winning war
205 I have much confidence in my judgment on things.
76 I have faith in my star-that I am intended to do something in this world. If I am mistaken- what does it matter? My life has been a pleasant one and though I should regret to leave it it would be a regret that perhaps I should never know.
His confidence in himself was truly inspiring. Also, the fact that he kept a journal and kept track of everything made a huge difference to his career, I think. An amazing man!!
I dated a Winston. Maybe I would have been nicer to him, had I read this first!
One thing I loved was they said he knew how to live in the moment. He had an incredible capacity to get things done.
Fave quotes: 887 Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.
To Hitler: pg 703: You do your worst, and we will do our best. (Let every one kill a Hun.)
He always wrote on his items for work: Action this Day. It would be resolved and worked on that day!683
Positive comments to France page 681
His speeches: 627: Never in their experience had they seen a single speech so change the temper of the House.
608 His joie di vivre. The fact that he could remain so positive and bubbly.
505 He talks about his personality and his poisoned arrows.
The rich 493: Cultured people are merely the glittering scum which floats upon the deep river of production.
492: His other evidence for a Deity was the existence of Lenin and Trotsky-for whom a hell was needed. I laughed out loud when I read this.
385 A real gem in a crisis (Wilson)
342 I have never known an officer take such pains to inspire confidence or to gain confidence, recalled MacDavid. Indeed he inspired confidence in gaining it.
279 early confidence in winning war
205 I have much confidence in my judgment on things.
76 I have faith in my star-that I am intended to do something in this world. If I am mistaken- what does it matter? My life has been a pleasant one and though I should regret to leave it it would be a regret that perhaps I should never know.
His confidence in himself was truly inspiring. Also, the fact that he kept a journal and kept track of everything made a huge difference to his career, I think. An amazing man!!
February 13, 2019
Shortly after his resignation from the premiership in 1955, Winston Churchill wrote these words to his monarch, Queen Elizabeth II:
“Our Island no longer holds the same authority or power that it did in the days of Queen Victoria. A vast world towers up around it and after all our victories we could not claim the rank we hold were it not for the respect for our character and good sense and the general admiration not untinged by envy for our institutions and way of life.�
There are many lines, rejoinders, and quotes from Churchill’s ninety years of life that would encapsulate his spirit, his intentions, his attitudes. This one, however, may be instructive because of the framing it presents, the change it laments, but also the permanence that Churchill had spent his entire life seeking to preserve. Churchill was able to evoke the days of the Victorian age because he had been born in 1874 and raised, educated, and called to public service in their twilight. He knew the power the Empire once possessed because he spent his twenties fighting savage wars of peace in India and Northeast Africa, as well as covering them as a journalist in South Africa (where he made a spectacular espace after being captured by the Boers). He entered Parliament in 1900 during a time of unsure parliamentary power and new demands for social services. His political career was witness to impossibly high victories and crushing defeats, often in quick succession, often so severe they would have destroyed the career of any ordinary man. His ability to outlive them was a testament to his ferocity. His penchant for work and productivity is perhaps unmatched in modern history. His capacity for attention, grace, ruthlessness, and candor drove him through a life of chasing the spotlight, chasing the solution, chasing the moment.
The reason for this headlong dash through life was his internal conviction that he was doomed to die young. His father, the younger son of a duke, died at the age of 45 after living a different sort of frenetic life. This is the defining reason for Churchill’s embrace, and subsequent domination, of every situation in which he found himself. Whether it be ducking fire on the Indian frontier, or leading a navy during wartime, or fighting against anti-rearmament forces in his own party in the 1930s, or leading a nation during its darkest days of aerial bombardment, Churchill never shrank from a fight or responsibility. He did what he believed to be the proper path. He allied with great powers during the Second World War, even as he knew in doing so he was permitting them the space necessary to surpass the United Kingdom as a great power. One of these allies was the Soviet Union, but the necessity of this alliance did not change his virulent anti-communism. He led the charge for workers� rights and social insurance while pushing back against socialist forces following the Second World War. He supported nationalization of the railroads while speaking out against encroachments on public and private freedoms. He was a man full of internal contradictions, but not so far as to ever leave him confused about what his course of action should be.
This brings us back to the opening statement. The “character, good sense, institutions and way of life� of which he wrote was a full-throated endorsement of Britishness as a superior way of living, governing, leading, and fighting. The institutions were the constitutional, social, parliamentary, and historic foundations on which his own life and career were possible. They encompassed not just the public life, but the private one as well. They were the authors, poets, artists, generals, engineers, and statesmen that over centuries had built the Britain that Churchill sought to, when necessary, reform but to ultimately conserve. It was not a the conservatism of a Luddite, or one aligned against cities or business, but the conservatism of someone who felt he had been entrusted to preserve a status quo that, on balance, was a positive one.
It was for this reason that he saw fit to argue against increased defense expenditures at some points of his career, but in favor of enormous military operations at others. He was never reflexively opposed to any policy, but was attuned to the actual needs of the nation at that time. He was not always correct. He was not impervious to scorn from his own party. He was not a perfect manager of his estate or his own family. He was, fundamentally, a flawed man who nevertheless persisted. While he and his wife, Clementine, would feud over their relative lives and expenditures, their marriage was an overwhelmingly successful one when measured by the standards of love, challenge, parenthood, and fidelity. In his own way he was a literary giant, having more than a dozen original historical works to his name, not to mention his numerous newspapers columns and important speeches. He was a painter, having taken the hobby as a respite against his own agitation and melancholy. He was a skilled and unflinching communicator—whether it be in book, letter, or speech. Even his political opponents could not fault his penchant for foresight and organization. The reason the official biography of his life can fill so many volumes—eight—is because his life was one of sheer unbridled activity that made a truly meteoric impact on the course of history. While coverage of Churchill can at times be either hagiographic or accusatory (or worse), there can be no doubt that he was a gravitational force on human affairs.
Like other great figures, Churchill’s is a life that seemingly demands documentation and explanation. So why is Martin Gilbert’s one-volume history worth the time? For starters, Gilbert was, in concert with Churchill’s son Randolph, Churchill’s official biographer. This one-volume work is a distillation of that larger effort. It is sufficiently long enough to make one both value the abbreviated nature of a single volume while also appreciating the sheer enormity of effort found within the multi-volume biography. It is a perfectly broad yet detailed presentation of Churchill’s life, often narrated by his or his contemporaries� words. Gilbert does have a tendency to introduce a paragraph and then cut very quickly to a quotation or excerpt. While the original sourcing is appreciated, it is done with little nuance. Likewise, Gilbert is a very good historian, but a somewhat lacking writer. This is perhaps more a question of taste than of effectiveness, but a writer fully aware of the gravity of what he is describing is an appreciated one. That should not dissuade anyone from taking a stab at this. It is the second Churchill biography I’ve read, the first being Paul Johnson’s marvelous little 160 page rendition. Gilbert’s is a more fleshed out account, and one that adequately fills in gaps of knowledge or of context. I hope to tackle the recent addition to the field of study offered by Andrew Roberts, as I’ve read nothing but overwhelmingly positive reviews and esteem him greatly. But I get ahead of myself. Let me close with a suggestion: read this book. If the writing does not hold you enraptured, the sheer magnanimity of the life it describes almost certainly will. Churchill’s is a life that is worth knowing in any decade or century. His words, and they are copious, are very much worth knowing now as we seek to answer the questions of a new century, a new century not unlike the one Churchill himself approach as he was seated in Parliament in 1900: one full of possibility but also of danger. Both must be taken head-on, a strategy Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill would surely appreciate.
“Our Island no longer holds the same authority or power that it did in the days of Queen Victoria. A vast world towers up around it and after all our victories we could not claim the rank we hold were it not for the respect for our character and good sense and the general admiration not untinged by envy for our institutions and way of life.�
There are many lines, rejoinders, and quotes from Churchill’s ninety years of life that would encapsulate his spirit, his intentions, his attitudes. This one, however, may be instructive because of the framing it presents, the change it laments, but also the permanence that Churchill had spent his entire life seeking to preserve. Churchill was able to evoke the days of the Victorian age because he had been born in 1874 and raised, educated, and called to public service in their twilight. He knew the power the Empire once possessed because he spent his twenties fighting savage wars of peace in India and Northeast Africa, as well as covering them as a journalist in South Africa (where he made a spectacular espace after being captured by the Boers). He entered Parliament in 1900 during a time of unsure parliamentary power and new demands for social services. His political career was witness to impossibly high victories and crushing defeats, often in quick succession, often so severe they would have destroyed the career of any ordinary man. His ability to outlive them was a testament to his ferocity. His penchant for work and productivity is perhaps unmatched in modern history. His capacity for attention, grace, ruthlessness, and candor drove him through a life of chasing the spotlight, chasing the solution, chasing the moment.
The reason for this headlong dash through life was his internal conviction that he was doomed to die young. His father, the younger son of a duke, died at the age of 45 after living a different sort of frenetic life. This is the defining reason for Churchill’s embrace, and subsequent domination, of every situation in which he found himself. Whether it be ducking fire on the Indian frontier, or leading a navy during wartime, or fighting against anti-rearmament forces in his own party in the 1930s, or leading a nation during its darkest days of aerial bombardment, Churchill never shrank from a fight or responsibility. He did what he believed to be the proper path. He allied with great powers during the Second World War, even as he knew in doing so he was permitting them the space necessary to surpass the United Kingdom as a great power. One of these allies was the Soviet Union, but the necessity of this alliance did not change his virulent anti-communism. He led the charge for workers� rights and social insurance while pushing back against socialist forces following the Second World War. He supported nationalization of the railroads while speaking out against encroachments on public and private freedoms. He was a man full of internal contradictions, but not so far as to ever leave him confused about what his course of action should be.
This brings us back to the opening statement. The “character, good sense, institutions and way of life� of which he wrote was a full-throated endorsement of Britishness as a superior way of living, governing, leading, and fighting. The institutions were the constitutional, social, parliamentary, and historic foundations on which his own life and career were possible. They encompassed not just the public life, but the private one as well. They were the authors, poets, artists, generals, engineers, and statesmen that over centuries had built the Britain that Churchill sought to, when necessary, reform but to ultimately conserve. It was not a the conservatism of a Luddite, or one aligned against cities or business, but the conservatism of someone who felt he had been entrusted to preserve a status quo that, on balance, was a positive one.
It was for this reason that he saw fit to argue against increased defense expenditures at some points of his career, but in favor of enormous military operations at others. He was never reflexively opposed to any policy, but was attuned to the actual needs of the nation at that time. He was not always correct. He was not impervious to scorn from his own party. He was not a perfect manager of his estate or his own family. He was, fundamentally, a flawed man who nevertheless persisted. While he and his wife, Clementine, would feud over their relative lives and expenditures, their marriage was an overwhelmingly successful one when measured by the standards of love, challenge, parenthood, and fidelity. In his own way he was a literary giant, having more than a dozen original historical works to his name, not to mention his numerous newspapers columns and important speeches. He was a painter, having taken the hobby as a respite against his own agitation and melancholy. He was a skilled and unflinching communicator—whether it be in book, letter, or speech. Even his political opponents could not fault his penchant for foresight and organization. The reason the official biography of his life can fill so many volumes—eight—is because his life was one of sheer unbridled activity that made a truly meteoric impact on the course of history. While coverage of Churchill can at times be either hagiographic or accusatory (or worse), there can be no doubt that he was a gravitational force on human affairs.
Like other great figures, Churchill’s is a life that seemingly demands documentation and explanation. So why is Martin Gilbert’s one-volume history worth the time? For starters, Gilbert was, in concert with Churchill’s son Randolph, Churchill’s official biographer. This one-volume work is a distillation of that larger effort. It is sufficiently long enough to make one both value the abbreviated nature of a single volume while also appreciating the sheer enormity of effort found within the multi-volume biography. It is a perfectly broad yet detailed presentation of Churchill’s life, often narrated by his or his contemporaries� words. Gilbert does have a tendency to introduce a paragraph and then cut very quickly to a quotation or excerpt. While the original sourcing is appreciated, it is done with little nuance. Likewise, Gilbert is a very good historian, but a somewhat lacking writer. This is perhaps more a question of taste than of effectiveness, but a writer fully aware of the gravity of what he is describing is an appreciated one. That should not dissuade anyone from taking a stab at this. It is the second Churchill biography I’ve read, the first being Paul Johnson’s marvelous little 160 page rendition. Gilbert’s is a more fleshed out account, and one that adequately fills in gaps of knowledge or of context. I hope to tackle the recent addition to the field of study offered by Andrew Roberts, as I’ve read nothing but overwhelmingly positive reviews and esteem him greatly. But I get ahead of myself. Let me close with a suggestion: read this book. If the writing does not hold you enraptured, the sheer magnanimity of the life it describes almost certainly will. Churchill’s is a life that is worth knowing in any decade or century. His words, and they are copious, are very much worth knowing now as we seek to answer the questions of a new century, a new century not unlike the one Churchill himself approach as he was seated in Parliament in 1900: one full of possibility but also of danger. Both must be taken head-on, a strategy Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill would surely appreciate.
October 25, 2015
It took me over a month to read this book and I'm glad I stayed the course. I liked the author's style very much. He never interjected any of his own opinions or did any psychological analysis. I appreciated that. When he wants a positive comment to be made about something Churchill said or did he brings in the testimony of a contemporary. He also brings in the criticisms of people from that time when appropriate. Sometimes when mentioning a position of Churchill's he just lets it stand for the reader to react. An example for me was Churchill's opposition to Indian independence and his contempt for Gandhi. I found that unacceptable and didn't need to hear what the author or anyone else thought. I noticed what I thought was the author's bias when it came to Zionism. Churchill's positive position on Zionism is mentioned on several occasions and though I was pleased to see the coverage I don't know if another author would have found it important to refer to it as many times. I'm not complaining but I thought it a bit odd.
The best part of the book, which I thought amazing, was the coverage of the beginning of World War II through the Battle of Britain or the end of the threat of German invasion. That was a very dramatic period and the author presents it very well.
I learned a great deal about Churchill and I am glad to have made his acquaintance. Special thanks to Amazon for making this book available on line for only $2.99. That is a bargain!
The best part of the book, which I thought amazing, was the coverage of the beginning of World War II through the Battle of Britain or the end of the threat of German invasion. That was a very dramatic period and the author presents it very well.
I learned a great deal about Churchill and I am glad to have made his acquaintance. Special thanks to Amazon for making this book available on line for only $2.99. That is a bargain!
May 3, 2016
i like tge book. it is written in open and friendly manner. and it will ve convenient to read to any person who gas just started his way on Britain story or First World War.
howevr i think that instead of citing letters to his wife it could be more usefull to cover his thoughts. for example, why Churchill thought that free market and open borders will help to improve life of working class in the Great Britain. Book just mention that he support free trade and has argues with other parties..
in any case it is a good book abd you can freely recommend to any person with varies background knowledge.
howevr i think that instead of citing letters to his wife it could be more usefull to cover his thoughts. for example, why Churchill thought that free market and open borders will help to improve life of working class in the Great Britain. Book just mention that he support free trade and has argues with other parties..
in any case it is a good book abd you can freely recommend to any person with varies background knowledge.
April 30, 2020
The author used his letters to convey the story, which was fine for the first 100 pages, but then it just got tiring.... The ending was well done.
November 30, 2014
Is an interest in Winston Spencer Churchill something characteristic of men of my age, the sixtyish? I have often suspected so, and now I suppose I have acted out my baseless preconception. I have long had a hankering to know more about him, but have been chary of getting drawn into hero-worship and so have left the topic alone. Another subject I had long left alone was the matter of Hitler and the rise of Nazism, but that was distaste and even a little of fear. However, it has been many years since I braced myself and read a Hitler biography, though I don't now remember which (Alan Bullock, I suspect). Since then I have read biographies of Stalin and Mao, and recently Mussolini and the proto-Duce Gabrielle D'Annunzio. I'm quite well read about tyrants and their ilk, and I can say quite emphatically that this new direction makes for much more pleasant reading.
Martin Gilbert is the author of the "official biography", a project started by Winston's son Randolph, which runs to 8 volumes, including documents. This is, I suppose, an abridgement of that monumental work, and even this runs to around 1000 pages. It has kept me busy with reading for several days. There are different ways to structure a biography, but the most straightforward is a simple chronological approach. Churchill's life lends itself to this approach because, apparently, there was never a dull period in all his life; the narrative never flags, not once.
Churchill has had his detractors, most notably those who even today blame him for the disaster of the Dardanelles campaign of 1915. That has been characterised by some as reckless adventurism, and he paid a high political price when it went wrong. He had an unfeigned appetite for battle. His glee when war was declared in 1914 was apparent to everyone who knew him. He never flinched from taking hard decisions. The sinking of the French fleet at Oran (Algeria) in 1940, to prevent it falling into German hands, cost some 1200 French lives; it demonstrated to the world that Britain was committed to fight alone, but it earned him the undying hatred of many Frenchmen. That is the burden of power exercised in wartime. He was sensible to the high human cost of war, but unlike many others he wasn't paralysed by the enormity of it. He had no compunction about the use of gas on the battlefield, advocating its use at Gallipoli (but by then nobody who mattered was listening). Many years later he reasoned that the bombing of civilians was taboo in the Great War, but gas was acceptable; but in the Second World War bombing civilians was acceptable but gas was not; he compared the matter to ladies' fashions. After the Second World War he voted to retain hanging. A man who has sent so many to fight and die is not squeamish. He was a favourite bête-noir of the suffragettes, but they mostly misunderstood him; his opposition to female suffrage (while it lasted) was predominantly pragmatic: he wasn't in favour of enfranchising large numbers of supporters of the Conservatives at a time when he was engaged in significant social reforms as a Liberal. One could pillory him for being born to privilege; he hobnobbed with the rich and powerful, and he wasn't a man to live modestly. The considerable wealth he enjoyed as an adult was largely, directly or indirectly, the product of his pen, so he cannot be accused of living the high life on the back of anyone other than himself. His mother spent the lion's share of his inheritance.
As I said above, I'm chary of hero-worship. That is why I've attempted to list all the popular objections to Churchill (with more than a few caveats, I will admit), before I turn to the positives. Here was a man who believed from a very early age that he was destined for great things. He entered the army and, even in the field, worked as a journalist with the long-term goal of raising his public profile so he could one day, like his father Randolph, be elected to Parliament. He demonstrated great coolness under fire, and he had an innate capacity to inspire confidence and lead. He wrote prolifically and well, and his accounts of his adventures were popular on both sides of the Atlantic. He entered Parliament as a Conservative, like his late father, but broke with the Conservatives over the issue of tariffs (Protection) which he opposed. He was on the side of history on that score. Recently I heard Boris Johnson spruiking his new Churchill biography on the radio. He spoke of Churchill as the "father of the welfare state". I think Martin Gilbert would concur that WSC was, at least, one of its progenitors. Throughout his political career Churchill demonstrated great sympathy for ordinary working people, and he sponsored and supported social legislation for such things as a minimum wage, an arbitration court, unemployment insurance, infirmity insurance, the aged pension, and a national health service. He wasn't your average upper-class pillar of the establishment. He was the father of bold schemes in peacetime as well as in wartime.
In private life he was a man who maintained long and loyal friendships, and he was a loving husband and father. His marriage struck me as a little odd, inasmuch as he and Clementine spent so many years apart, he working nearly every waking hour and she on cruising holidays or recovering her health in Venice or Switzerland, and then he frequently holidayed without her; but in all their correspondence they seem utterly devoted. Churchill's relationship with his parents was pretty remote too, except in letters. He was generally loved by his staff. Though he worked them hard and kept very odd hours, he was generally good humoured and could be very entertaining. One staffer who worked for WSC as Prime Minister, then for his successor (Attlee) when he lost the election, said it was like going "from champagne and water".
The wartime Churchill is the Churchill with which the public is most familiar - courageous, resolute, prescient, dogged and forthright. He was the tower of strength that inspired the British nation to continue the fight against all the odds. I could go on and on but this is my response to Gilbert's book not a précis of it. I think I expected a good biography of WSC to leave me admiring him (with a few reservations) for his wartime achievements above all else; but what has impressed me most is his character, with all its idiosyncrasies. His daughter Mary puts it best, writing to him in 1951: "It is hardly in the nature of things that your descendants should inherit your genius - but I earnestly hope they may share in some way the qualities of your heart." (p.959). She loved him, and so will most who have read this biography, I believe.
Martin Gilbert is the author of the "official biography", a project started by Winston's son Randolph, which runs to 8 volumes, including documents. This is, I suppose, an abridgement of that monumental work, and even this runs to around 1000 pages. It has kept me busy with reading for several days. There are different ways to structure a biography, but the most straightforward is a simple chronological approach. Churchill's life lends itself to this approach because, apparently, there was never a dull period in all his life; the narrative never flags, not once.
Churchill has had his detractors, most notably those who even today blame him for the disaster of the Dardanelles campaign of 1915. That has been characterised by some as reckless adventurism, and he paid a high political price when it went wrong. He had an unfeigned appetite for battle. His glee when war was declared in 1914 was apparent to everyone who knew him. He never flinched from taking hard decisions. The sinking of the French fleet at Oran (Algeria) in 1940, to prevent it falling into German hands, cost some 1200 French lives; it demonstrated to the world that Britain was committed to fight alone, but it earned him the undying hatred of many Frenchmen. That is the burden of power exercised in wartime. He was sensible to the high human cost of war, but unlike many others he wasn't paralysed by the enormity of it. He had no compunction about the use of gas on the battlefield, advocating its use at Gallipoli (but by then nobody who mattered was listening). Many years later he reasoned that the bombing of civilians was taboo in the Great War, but gas was acceptable; but in the Second World War bombing civilians was acceptable but gas was not; he compared the matter to ladies' fashions. After the Second World War he voted to retain hanging. A man who has sent so many to fight and die is not squeamish. He was a favourite bête-noir of the suffragettes, but they mostly misunderstood him; his opposition to female suffrage (while it lasted) was predominantly pragmatic: he wasn't in favour of enfranchising large numbers of supporters of the Conservatives at a time when he was engaged in significant social reforms as a Liberal. One could pillory him for being born to privilege; he hobnobbed with the rich and powerful, and he wasn't a man to live modestly. The considerable wealth he enjoyed as an adult was largely, directly or indirectly, the product of his pen, so he cannot be accused of living the high life on the back of anyone other than himself. His mother spent the lion's share of his inheritance.
As I said above, I'm chary of hero-worship. That is why I've attempted to list all the popular objections to Churchill (with more than a few caveats, I will admit), before I turn to the positives. Here was a man who believed from a very early age that he was destined for great things. He entered the army and, even in the field, worked as a journalist with the long-term goal of raising his public profile so he could one day, like his father Randolph, be elected to Parliament. He demonstrated great coolness under fire, and he had an innate capacity to inspire confidence and lead. He wrote prolifically and well, and his accounts of his adventures were popular on both sides of the Atlantic. He entered Parliament as a Conservative, like his late father, but broke with the Conservatives over the issue of tariffs (Protection) which he opposed. He was on the side of history on that score. Recently I heard Boris Johnson spruiking his new Churchill biography on the radio. He spoke of Churchill as the "father of the welfare state". I think Martin Gilbert would concur that WSC was, at least, one of its progenitors. Throughout his political career Churchill demonstrated great sympathy for ordinary working people, and he sponsored and supported social legislation for such things as a minimum wage, an arbitration court, unemployment insurance, infirmity insurance, the aged pension, and a national health service. He wasn't your average upper-class pillar of the establishment. He was the father of bold schemes in peacetime as well as in wartime.
In private life he was a man who maintained long and loyal friendships, and he was a loving husband and father. His marriage struck me as a little odd, inasmuch as he and Clementine spent so many years apart, he working nearly every waking hour and she on cruising holidays or recovering her health in Venice or Switzerland, and then he frequently holidayed without her; but in all their correspondence they seem utterly devoted. Churchill's relationship with his parents was pretty remote too, except in letters. He was generally loved by his staff. Though he worked them hard and kept very odd hours, he was generally good humoured and could be very entertaining. One staffer who worked for WSC as Prime Minister, then for his successor (Attlee) when he lost the election, said it was like going "from champagne and water".
The wartime Churchill is the Churchill with which the public is most familiar - courageous, resolute, prescient, dogged and forthright. He was the tower of strength that inspired the British nation to continue the fight against all the odds. I could go on and on but this is my response to Gilbert's book not a précis of it. I think I expected a good biography of WSC to leave me admiring him (with a few reservations) for his wartime achievements above all else; but what has impressed me most is his character, with all its idiosyncrasies. His daughter Mary puts it best, writing to him in 1951: "It is hardly in the nature of things that your descendants should inherit your genius - but I earnestly hope they may share in some way the qualities of your heart." (p.959). She loved him, and so will most who have read this biography, I believe.
July 21, 2019
I knew Churchill was quite a character with many adventures as youth. He is most commonly associated with the British Conservatives party, but that was not his political beliefs. Churchill really was liberal or even labour in his policies. I was fairly familiar with history in Europe and the Western World during the period of book, however this book filled in a lot of details I was missing. I have long wondered is I should read some of his writings, now I know I will as some point. It was clear for this book how much research Churchill put in his memoirs.
April 7, 2023
This abridged single-volume version of Martin Gilbert's official biography of Sir Winston Churchill is the one to read if you don't want to go to the trouble of acquiring all eight volumes of his original work.
Just be warned -- it's 1000+ plus pages, so it's going to take you a long time to read it.
The writing style isn't the lush voice of William Manchester, but more of a precise, dispassionate prose that very thoroughly examines Churchill's life, especially his distinctive viewpoint that was so essential to how he led during World War II.
Churchill was one of the few who saw the danger of Hitler's rise to power and believed that strengthening Britain's military, not appeasement, was the best way to assure peace. Yet after the war, he also believed that Germany should not be burdened with heavy reparations, as it was after the first world war, and that it should be welcomed back into what he envisioned as a United States of Europe.
However, like any abridged book, it also skims over certain areas. For example, there is little insight into Churchill's relationships with his family. Almost all of his four children had problems with alcoholism or depression. As for his wife Clementine, he seemed to have a very close relationship with her, yet within certain boundaries (they always seemed to be going on separate holidays).
Just be warned -- it's 1000+ plus pages, so it's going to take you a long time to read it.
The writing style isn't the lush voice of William Manchester, but more of a precise, dispassionate prose that very thoroughly examines Churchill's life, especially his distinctive viewpoint that was so essential to how he led during World War II.
Churchill was one of the few who saw the danger of Hitler's rise to power and believed that strengthening Britain's military, not appeasement, was the best way to assure peace. Yet after the war, he also believed that Germany should not be burdened with heavy reparations, as it was after the first world war, and that it should be welcomed back into what he envisioned as a United States of Europe.
However, like any abridged book, it also skims over certain areas. For example, there is little insight into Churchill's relationships with his family. Almost all of his four children had problems with alcoholism or depression. As for his wife Clementine, he seemed to have a very close relationship with her, yet within certain boundaries (they always seemed to be going on separate holidays).
September 8, 2022
Way too long, even though condescended. The man’s personality gets lost in the overdone research. You feel like you’re watching a movie of the man’s life but unedited-in real time.
January 7, 2020
Review title: Living up to history
This is a daunting 1,000 page block of biography. But consider this: Gilbert took over to finish the official eight volume biography from which this single-volume version was condensed. Few words are wasted on an account of a life as full as Churchill's. He must stand as the most important statesman of the 20th century. His career spanned the 19th Century Boer War as a participant and journalist, the first World War as a military participant and political leader, and the Second World War as England's Prime Minister.
He was also a prolific and best-selling author, writing multi-volume accounts of the two world wars and the history of the English-speaking people, as well as several biographies of British political leaders (including his father). " 'Writing a book is an adventure,' he said. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.' " (p. 887)
Churchill was the son of nobility. His father, Lord Randolph, was a member of Parliament and several British governments. But young Winston was a trouble to his parents, fairing poorly in school, in three successive terms as a young boy finishing 11th of 11, 9th of 9, and 13th of 13 students in class standing, overspending his allowance and earning reprimands from his distracted father and his distant mother (letters begging her to come to visit him on vacations at his boarding school were often fruitless), and whippings from his schoolmasters. But finally, through rededication to his studies and renunciation of the recreational pursuits he preferred, by 18 his grades had improved enough to consider a military career. After just falling short on his first two attempts at the entrance exams for the Sandhurst military academy, Winston passed on his third and wrote letters to his parents proudly providing news of his acceptance, expecting finally to win their praise and love.
Nothing then could have been more crushing to a young son eager for approval than his father's response. Lord Randolph, unbeknownst to Winston and just starting to be noticed by close associates and doctors, was beginning to suffer the debilitating mental illness brought on by syphilis which would end with his death in two short years completely insane and at times needing restraint by strait jacket.
It is hard to imagine the bitter pain this letter caused young Churchill and how much it shaped his later life and career, even after he learned of the disease-borne insanity warping his father's words and shared a few good days of reconciliation before his death.
Even as he set out on his military career, he had his eyes on bigger prizes, angling for promotion to more visible fields of battle (Egypt and then South Africa) and beginning to write and make political speeches in preparation for electoral forays into Parliament. His independent reading lead him to conclude, as a 23-year-old army officer, "Militarism degenerates into brutality. Loyalty promotes tyranny and sycophancy. Humanitarianism becomes maudlin and ridiculous. Patriotism shades into cant. Imperialism sinks into jingoism." (p. 89) Further into his political career, he also took a stand against protectionism which was part of his rapid but principled transition from the conservative Tory benches to the Liberal benches.
Throughout his career Churchill would be known for adopting ideas that worked no matter which party or philosophy they were associated with, which earned him accolades from some as a conciliator and criticism from others for seemingly fickle vacillation. But regardless of whether they agreed with him, everyone recognized Churchill's political skill, as noticed at the age of 30 by a political ally: 'Already in the House of Commons he leads by a natural right which no man can dispute. He does the inevitable act which no one had thought of before; he thinks the original thought which is so simple and obvious once it has been uttered; he coins the happy phrase which expresses what all men have longed to say, and which thereafter comes so aptly to every man's tongue.' (p. 172)
With the approaching spectre of war in the 1910s, Churchill was in a political leadership role at the head of the Admiralty, advocating for preparedness to match the rapidly expanding German navy while simultaneously offering incentives for the Germans to slow their growth. Churchill also advocated for advanced technologies, taking pilot lessons while promoting navy air forces, securing oil stocks while converting ships from coal to oil, and describing the capabilities and funding the secret development of a new mechanized type of weapon that came to be called the tank. But when the plan for a joint land and sea mission to attack the Axis powers through the Dardenelles ended in near-disaster at Gallipoli, Churchill bore the brunt of the blame and he was forced to resign, returning to active military duty in the French trenches for six months at the peak of the war. How many other political leaders in positions of national influence at the age of 40 have ever taken a military role of diminished scope and applied themselves under front-line fire for the government that demoted them? While Churchill chafed at his limited range of influence, he never doubted his ability to influence and lead his government and his country when he was given another chance.
Gilbert's biography relies heavily on Churchill's private correspondence and government documents. While he describes his archival sources in the preface, he doesn't include a bibliography or footnote any of his references, a surprising decision in a 1,000-page biography based on primary sources. He writes in strictly chronological order, and provides running headers with the year and Churchill's age to help keep the reader grounded in the events without repeated references to dates in the text. Maps of the locations of major events are included at the back of the text but not referenced in the text; I resorted to keeping a bookmark in the map section to flip back and forth between text and maps when geographic place names were mentioned.
The maps come into play often because the geographical range and intellectual and political scope of Churchill's skills and interests as a political leader, military strategist, and writer of history and biography documented by Gilbert are truly astonishing. Still, with his independent mind and sharp tongue he accumulated enemies, as he was sacked from government time after time and taunted with failure. With the perfect vision of hindsight, he was usually proven right, with the possible exception of his stance on Indian independence, where he argued for a continuing British dominion at the national level and gradual emancipation as earned at the Indian state level; while the second half of the century would show the untenable nature of any imperial colonialism, Churchill's belief that lives would be lost unnecessarily by premature independence may have been borne out by the events of history. Where Churchill was indisputably right was his realization of the deadly intent of Germany's rapid rearmiment in the opening years of the 1930s, of Hitler's absolute readiness to use his growing military might in yet another conquest of Europe, and of England's lost superiority of arms and readiness. Even though it cost him votes and government positions, Churchill never wavered in challenging his party and the government of the need to rearm and be ready for the possibility of the war which was soon to come.
Churchill was, in short, the definition of a statesman no matter what role he was playing, and whether in or out of government. He supported, proposed, or acted upon what he thought was right for his country without regard for party platform, public opinion, or government policy. Churchill was confident in decisions and decisive in his policies, once stating that "never in his life had he felt more equal to his work."--at the height of the desperate Battle of Britain as German bombs took daily casualties in London, Manchester, and other major cities! But he also said about the same time: 'Normally I wake up buoyant to face the new day. Then I awoke with dread in my heart.' (p. 685). He was full of energy and drive but never a foolish optimist. He was often excoriated for his positions, which were almost always proven right by history but he never played the "I told you so" card, and seldom received either credit or apologies from those who attacked him when he was proven right.
In the months I have been blessed to work in the UK and learn her history through reading and visiting historical sites including the underground war rooms frequented by Prime Minister Churchill during the second war, I have been puzzled by the seemingly muted praise and moderated respect for his great achievements. Gilbert's final chapters that bring his story to the end of Churchill's long life provide clues in the post-war years when the aging and ailing Prime Minister clung to power in his hope of brokering a summit between Russia and her wartime allies but now Cold-War protagonists. These few years and pages may have tarnished the great man's reputation at home, but should not subtract from his historical stature. He truly lived up to history.
This is a daunting 1,000 page block of biography. But consider this: Gilbert took over to finish the official eight volume biography from which this single-volume version was condensed. Few words are wasted on an account of a life as full as Churchill's. He must stand as the most important statesman of the 20th century. His career spanned the 19th Century Boer War as a participant and journalist, the first World War as a military participant and political leader, and the Second World War as England's Prime Minister.
He was also a prolific and best-selling author, writing multi-volume accounts of the two world wars and the history of the English-speaking people, as well as several biographies of British political leaders (including his father). " 'Writing a book is an adventure,' he said. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.' " (p. 887)
Churchill was the son of nobility. His father, Lord Randolph, was a member of Parliament and several British governments. But young Winston was a trouble to his parents, fairing poorly in school, in three successive terms as a young boy finishing 11th of 11, 9th of 9, and 13th of 13 students in class standing, overspending his allowance and earning reprimands from his distracted father and his distant mother (letters begging her to come to visit him on vacations at his boarding school were often fruitless), and whippings from his schoolmasters. But finally, through rededication to his studies and renunciation of the recreational pursuits he preferred, by 18 his grades had improved enough to consider a military career. After just falling short on his first two attempts at the entrance exams for the Sandhurst military academy, Winston passed on his third and wrote letters to his parents proudly providing news of his acceptance, expecting finally to win their praise and love.
Nothing then could have been more crushing to a young son eager for approval than his father's response. Lord Randolph, unbeknownst to Winston and just starting to be noticed by close associates and doctors, was beginning to suffer the debilitating mental illness brought on by syphilis which would end with his death in two short years completely insane and at times needing restraint by strait jacket.
Do not think I am going to take the trouble of writing you long letters after every folly & failure you commit & undergo. I shall not write again on these matters & you need not trouble to write any answer to this part of my letter, because I no longer attach the slightest weight to anything you may say about your own achievements & exploits. . . . . Make this position indelibly impressed on your mind that if your conduct and action at Sandhurst is similar to what it has been in the other establishments in which it has been sought vainly to impart to you some education, then my responsibility for you is over. I shall leave you to depend on yourself, giving you merely such assistance as may be necessary to permit of a respectable life. Because I am certain that if you cannot prevent yourself from leading the idle useless unprofitable life you have had during your school days & later months, you will become a mere social wastrel, one of the hundreds of the public school failures, and you will degenerate into a shabby unhappy & futile existence. (p. 38)
It is hard to imagine the bitter pain this letter caused young Churchill and how much it shaped his later life and career, even after he learned of the disease-borne insanity warping his father's words and shared a few good days of reconciliation before his death.
Even as he set out on his military career, he had his eyes on bigger prizes, angling for promotion to more visible fields of battle (Egypt and then South Africa) and beginning to write and make political speeches in preparation for electoral forays into Parliament. His independent reading lead him to conclude, as a 23-year-old army officer, "Militarism degenerates into brutality. Loyalty promotes tyranny and sycophancy. Humanitarianism becomes maudlin and ridiculous. Patriotism shades into cant. Imperialism sinks into jingoism." (p. 89) Further into his political career, he also took a stand against protectionism which was part of his rapid but principled transition from the conservative Tory benches to the Liberal benches.
'It would seem to me a fantastic policy,' he wrote to a constituent on November 14, 'to endeavour to shut the British Empire up in a ringed fence.' Why should Britain deny itself 'the good and varied merchandise which the varied traffic of the world offers, more especially since the more we trade with others, the more they must trade with us'. The planet was 'not a very big one compared with the other celestial bodies, and I see no particular reason why we should endeavour to make inside our planet a smaller planet called the British Empire, cut off by impossible space from everything else'. P. 153
Throughout his career Churchill would be known for adopting ideas that worked no matter which party or philosophy they were associated with, which earned him accolades from some as a conciliator and criticism from others for seemingly fickle vacillation. But regardless of whether they agreed with him, everyone recognized Churchill's political skill, as noticed at the age of 30 by a political ally: 'Already in the House of Commons he leads by a natural right which no man can dispute. He does the inevitable act which no one had thought of before; he thinks the original thought which is so simple and obvious once it has been uttered; he coins the happy phrase which expresses what all men have longed to say, and which thereafter comes so aptly to every man's tongue.' (p. 172)
With the approaching spectre of war in the 1910s, Churchill was in a political leadership role at the head of the Admiralty, advocating for preparedness to match the rapidly expanding German navy while simultaneously offering incentives for the Germans to slow their growth. Churchill also advocated for advanced technologies, taking pilot lessons while promoting navy air forces, securing oil stocks while converting ships from coal to oil, and describing the capabilities and funding the secret development of a new mechanized type of weapon that came to be called the tank. But when the plan for a joint land and sea mission to attack the Axis powers through the Dardenelles ended in near-disaster at Gallipoli, Churchill bore the brunt of the blame and he was forced to resign, returning to active military duty in the French trenches for six months at the peak of the war. How many other political leaders in positions of national influence at the age of 40 have ever taken a military role of diminished scope and applied themselves under front-line fire for the government that demoted them? While Churchill chafed at his limited range of influence, he never doubted his ability to influence and lead his government and his country when he was given another chance.
Gilbert's biography relies heavily on Churchill's private correspondence and government documents. While he describes his archival sources in the preface, he doesn't include a bibliography or footnote any of his references, a surprising decision in a 1,000-page biography based on primary sources. He writes in strictly chronological order, and provides running headers with the year and Churchill's age to help keep the reader grounded in the events without repeated references to dates in the text. Maps of the locations of major events are included at the back of the text but not referenced in the text; I resorted to keeping a bookmark in the map section to flip back and forth between text and maps when geographic place names were mentioned.
The maps come into play often because the geographical range and intellectual and political scope of Churchill's skills and interests as a political leader, military strategist, and writer of history and biography documented by Gilbert are truly astonishing. Still, with his independent mind and sharp tongue he accumulated enemies, as he was sacked from government time after time and taunted with failure. With the perfect vision of hindsight, he was usually proven right, with the possible exception of his stance on Indian independence, where he argued for a continuing British dominion at the national level and gradual emancipation as earned at the Indian state level; while the second half of the century would show the untenable nature of any imperial colonialism, Churchill's belief that lives would be lost unnecessarily by premature independence may have been borne out by the events of history. Where Churchill was indisputably right was his realization of the deadly intent of Germany's rapid rearmiment in the opening years of the 1930s, of Hitler's absolute readiness to use his growing military might in yet another conquest of Europe, and of England's lost superiority of arms and readiness. Even though it cost him votes and government positions, Churchill never wavered in challenging his party and the government of the need to rearm and be ready for the possibility of the war which was soon to come.
Churchill was, in short, the definition of a statesman no matter what role he was playing, and whether in or out of government. He supported, proposed, or acted upon what he thought was right for his country without regard for party platform, public opinion, or government policy. Churchill was confident in decisions and decisive in his policies, once stating that "never in his life had he felt more equal to his work."--at the height of the desperate Battle of Britain as German bombs took daily casualties in London, Manchester, and other major cities! But he also said about the same time: 'Normally I wake up buoyant to face the new day. Then I awoke with dread in my heart.' (p. 685). He was full of energy and drive but never a foolish optimist. He was often excoriated for his positions, which were almost always proven right by history but he never played the "I told you so" card, and seldom received either credit or apologies from those who attacked him when he was proven right.
In the months I have been blessed to work in the UK and learn her history through reading and visiting historical sites including the underground war rooms frequented by Prime Minister Churchill during the second war, I have been puzzled by the seemingly muted praise and moderated respect for his great achievements. Gilbert's final chapters that bring his story to the end of Churchill's long life provide clues in the post-war years when the aging and ailing Prime Minister clung to power in his hope of brokering a summit between Russia and her wartime allies but now Cold-War protagonists. These few years and pages may have tarnished the great man's reputation at home, but should not subtract from his historical stature. He truly lived up to history.
October 7, 2021
Too long to finish. Maybe one of the most complete biographies ever. Truly a fascinating man.
November 25, 2023
Great book about a great man.
April 8, 2015
This book is a wonderful achievement, and paints a portrait of one of the 20th Century's most decisive political figures. List the top five and you would have Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, and perhaps Gandhi and Mao, but Churchill would have to be in the top five by almost any reckoning. By that token, almost anyone interested in the political and military history of the Century ought to have an interest in Winston.
There is more to Winston, however, than just the War, which in any case we should not mention for fear of upsetting the German guests. His life is an exciting enough story in its own right. Born to a great Parliamentarian, he was probably fated to be another significant figure whatever happened, but Churchill had a habit of making political enemies, as the book clearly documents. On the other hand, he was a genuinely larger-than-life character in his own right, and probably irrepressible. At any rate, this biography provides enough material to speculate either way. This is a man who left a comfortable seat in Parliament to join a unit in the trenches of France in the Great War, for instance, although he clearly did not find it that great and came away with impressions of modern technological warfare which he desperately tried to share in the following decade. These impressions began to form even earlier, when he joined the Boer War as a correspondent and simply could not keep himself from leading the troops he was meant to be reporting upon. When captured, Churchill alone escaped, stowed away in a railway wagon full of coal sacks and when he reached a British Consulate, practically his first act was to telegraph the camp commander to exonerate the Boer guards of responsibility for his flight. Clearly this is a many of rare qualities and needs to be read for his personal merits alone, let alone his place in history!
The book is perhaps a little heavy-going on account of its near 1,000 pages, but leavened with Churchill's familiar wit. Churchill is often abused by the right in justification of the latest proposed war, and by the left as an imperialist and gasser of Iraqis, but this account paints a picture of the Churchill the British grew up with - the lone and indefatigable hero steering the country through a shared destiny, indomitable in public but occasionally plagued with doubt in private. The great irony of his life may be that he was to lead a war that he felt to have been unnecessary and that, having passed on, his name is invoked again and again to justify more unnecessary wars of which he would undoubtedly have disapproved. The boom reveals this magnanimous and conciliatory side, as well; no petty bully of the weaker or the defeated was Winston.
While it documents a whole life, when considering Churchill we will always come back to his wartime premiership, and rightly so. The lasting impression which this excellent biography leaves is that history itself knew this and was preparing him. No matter what scrapes and adventures he thrust himself into, he survived to meet his date with destiny, and this book makes you feel that he was being saved for it.
There is more to Winston, however, than just the War, which in any case we should not mention for fear of upsetting the German guests. His life is an exciting enough story in its own right. Born to a great Parliamentarian, he was probably fated to be another significant figure whatever happened, but Churchill had a habit of making political enemies, as the book clearly documents. On the other hand, he was a genuinely larger-than-life character in his own right, and probably irrepressible. At any rate, this biography provides enough material to speculate either way. This is a man who left a comfortable seat in Parliament to join a unit in the trenches of France in the Great War, for instance, although he clearly did not find it that great and came away with impressions of modern technological warfare which he desperately tried to share in the following decade. These impressions began to form even earlier, when he joined the Boer War as a correspondent and simply could not keep himself from leading the troops he was meant to be reporting upon. When captured, Churchill alone escaped, stowed away in a railway wagon full of coal sacks and when he reached a British Consulate, practically his first act was to telegraph the camp commander to exonerate the Boer guards of responsibility for his flight. Clearly this is a many of rare qualities and needs to be read for his personal merits alone, let alone his place in history!
The book is perhaps a little heavy-going on account of its near 1,000 pages, but leavened with Churchill's familiar wit. Churchill is often abused by the right in justification of the latest proposed war, and by the left as an imperialist and gasser of Iraqis, but this account paints a picture of the Churchill the British grew up with - the lone and indefatigable hero steering the country through a shared destiny, indomitable in public but occasionally plagued with doubt in private. The great irony of his life may be that he was to lead a war that he felt to have been unnecessary and that, having passed on, his name is invoked again and again to justify more unnecessary wars of which he would undoubtedly have disapproved. The boom reveals this magnanimous and conciliatory side, as well; no petty bully of the weaker or the defeated was Winston.
While it documents a whole life, when considering Churchill we will always come back to his wartime premiership, and rightly so. The lasting impression which this excellent biography leaves is that history itself knew this and was preparing him. No matter what scrapes and adventures he thrust himself into, he survived to meet his date with destiny, and this book makes you feel that he was being saved for it.
May 31, 2013
I am amazed at some people in history. Usually they are far removed from the events that have shaped my life but Churchill's influence has obviously affected most of Western society during and following WWII. The book was abridged. I cannot imagine the depth of the 8 volume set. Perhaps someday I'll acquire it.
Now to address this tome.
The work was commissioned by Churchill himself so obviously it will color him in a favorable light. But even knowing that, the history and events he participated in and the wisdom he sought to bestow at key points in history are remarkable and in many cases undeniably farsighted. He had a grasp of world events and the movement of governments and ideologies that seemed beyond a mere individual.
But I think what I liked the most about this book and the portrait it paints of Churchill is the unashamed emotion he had. At times he would weep and other times laugh and be as spirited as anyone. I think that passion is why even his rivals in government were drawn to him. I think this passion is why the people loved him. He didn't seem to hold emotional expression as beneath himself and he didn't seem to fake it for gain.
All that said, the book is well written and worth the investment of time it will take to read it thoroughly.
Now to address this tome.
The work was commissioned by Churchill himself so obviously it will color him in a favorable light. But even knowing that, the history and events he participated in and the wisdom he sought to bestow at key points in history are remarkable and in many cases undeniably farsighted. He had a grasp of world events and the movement of governments and ideologies that seemed beyond a mere individual.
But I think what I liked the most about this book and the portrait it paints of Churchill is the unashamed emotion he had. At times he would weep and other times laugh and be as spirited as anyone. I think that passion is why even his rivals in government were drawn to him. I think this passion is why the people loved him. He didn't seem to hold emotional expression as beneath himself and he didn't seem to fake it for gain.
All that said, the book is well written and worth the investment of time it will take to read it thoroughly.
June 17, 2018
This is a very good book for those who want to be finished with knowing Churchill, who is the most dexterous politician in the eyes of many, once for all. The book almost covers the entire life of Churchill from childhood through his death. The most important biographical feature that was lacking in this book was a psychological outlook which could have given the book a much more coherence and consistency. Also downplaying of Churchill's roles in the imperialist policies of UK during the first half of the 20th century, which in my opinion was so harmful, was visible throughout the book, it was like the author was bewildered about those policies and was asking himself whether to cover them or not and if yes, whether to cherish him for those policies or criticise. For example (this was more visible to me as an Iranian) Churchill's role in stealing Iran's oil was a matter of applause but his role in 1953 subversion of Iran's democratic and elected prime-minister by a UK-USA steered military putsch was totally uncovered. However, I should have expected these themes from a British national. Although the book had been written by a Churchill lover, it was a good read with a lot of valuable historical information.
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