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A Fascinating Read, not unlike Rick’s previous works

While serious students of the World War II-era will find this work shallow in its overall treatment of Orwell, Churchill, and the war, it it necessarily a useful primer for interested readers wherein Ricks shows us the qualities men (and women) must possess as thinkers and politicians to resist groupthink, misinformation, and immoral leadership (i.e the opposite of Trumpism). The final chapters of this book argue that above all else Churchill and Orwell tried to always see what was “right in front of their nose” and report objective reality—something that in an age of “alternative facts” seems far removed from our current political climate.

A short, enlightening read. Highly recommended.

Winston Churchill and George Orwell are both fascinating and influential, and it's interesting to see them treated together in a book. I enjoyed Ricks' dual exploration of these famous gents of the 20th century, but I'll admit: I'm still not sure if the dual approach really makes sense.

That is, while they lived during the same tumultuous (especially for their home country of England) time and while they were both big thinkers who thoughts lots and carefully about geopolitical events and developments, they never directly interacted. They read each others work and seemed to respect each other, but they didn't engage with each other in response to their leading, writing, or current events.

What you have, then, are two individuals who "fought for freedom" in different ways and with different foundational beliefs. Churchill's peak fame and influence were during his lifetime and focused generally on WWII and specifically on ensuring that England wasn't conquered by a despot and his domineering state. For Orwell, fame and influence came very late in his life (and even more so after his life) and with a more general focus on the state and its control of citizens.

Again, this is a good read and an interesting book. There are spots where you get Churchill and Orwell's thoughts on the same event or general idea, but much of it is simply narrative about two men who are worth knowing about.

Ricks gives an interesting comparison between Churchill and Orwell that focuses on their biggest similarity - the value they place on liberty. Whether it is Churchill going against the grain by spending the 30s in opposition to the majority of British politicians by casting light on Germany’s rise and the need for Britain to react - or Orwell’s seemingly prescient ability to predict the destruction of liberty under a surveillance state - the two looked at society in a way not common at the time and focused on the facts that underlie situations. Their tradition is noted as being carried on by those such as Malcolm X and MLK jr, as these men were willing to find the facts of a society that goes against its own values and put forth action that aimed to fight injustice. Namely, fighting institutions, laws, etc that do not protect the individual liberty of all - in the same way that nazi germany and big brother aimed to suppress liberty in the name of state unity.

Listened to this as an audiobook after hearing Ricks discuss the book on Fresh Air. Both Churchill and Orwell came close to death in the 1930s and emerged as leaders later in life, during the War, and in Orwell's case posthumously. I was drawn into the book because of the way Churchill and Orwell still loom so large in the popular imagination, and it was interesting hearing about their lives and their work, and the circumstances that made it so.

I'm not a big fan of biographies but this book sounded interesting, two biographies linking together two very different people, the larger than life Winston Churchill and the quieter, sickly George Orwell. The main attraction here for me was Orwell, I'm a big fan of his books, especially "Down and out..." and I know very little about the chap.

I can't really see why these two people were picked as their paths never crossed and Churchill barely knew of Orwell, you'd think they could have been paired up with similar people. This does become an issue in the book because Churchill soon takes over the book, having had such an impact on history there was so much more to write about, Orwell ends up taking on a supporting roll at times.

That being said I did enjoy reading it, I learnt loads about Orwell and reading about how events in his life shaped his books was fascinating. I already knew a lot about Churchill and what he did, what was new though was his state of mind, as the war came to a close he became more withdrawn and his famous oratory skills became weaker.

The chapters are well set out, starting out with how their characters evolved and moving on to important stages of their life. The research seems to be impeccable and Thomas Ricks isn't scared to give his opinions of other biographers, his comments about Tony Blair gave me a chuckle.

struggled to decide on a rating here, bouncing continuously between 3 and 4 stars, I enjoyed the ending so have settled on 4 stars.

Blog review is here> https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2018/06/21/churchill-and-orwell-the-fight-for-freedom-by-thomas-e-ricks/

★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

BOOK REVIEW

Let's face it, mixing Churchill with Orwell probably has a marketing/selling purpose since the world-war 2 is so extensively covered topic. But hey, it worked. Immediately after seeing this book I knew I have to read it since I admire both Churchill and Orwell.

I read a lot of reviews mentioning how different these two men are. But personally, I feel they have a lot in common - the courage to speak their minds and defend their opinions, they both challenged the status quo and didn't blindly accept the common truths.

GOOD: well-written, a pleasantly structured and highly readable dual biography. I also enjoyed the last part and the author's view on things
VS BAD: we want more of Orwell! I felt that there were much more of Churchill than Orwell, which I was not very happy about

IS THIS A BOOK FOR YOU? If you are interested in history, challenging the status quo and like Churchill and/or Orwell definitely a book for you

FAVORITE QUOTE: "To refuse to run with the herd is generally harder than it looks. To break with the most powerful among that herd requires unusual depth of character and clarity of mind."

3.5 Stars - a nice walkthrough of the works and thoughts of Churchill and Orwell, closing on a call to learn the facts and then take stands on those facts.

I feel really mixed about this book. I really enjoyed the first 2/3 of the book but I really had to push myself to finish the last part.
As someone who has read a lot of George Orwell's work I found the pages where Thomas Ricks recounted the plots of his novels in great detail to be incredibly repetitive. I felt that there were large sections that could have either been trimmed or entirely cut out.
I also found some of his comparisons between Churchill and Orwell to be a bit of a stretch. In some sections I found myself thinking that Ricks had just selected two individuals at random who happened to live at the same time.
My last gripe is that much of the last part was dedicated to speculation as to what Orwell's opinions on current and past issues would be if he hadn't of died when he did. While it is interesting to consider, I feel like arguments such as these that are based primarily off of feelings, speculation and reading deeply into past works that were written in a completely different context to be circular in nature and never ending as no one side can completely disprove the other.
With that being said, I did for the most part enjoy this book. I went in looking to learn more about Orwell's life and context in which he wrote but I also found myself really interested in reading the sections about Churchill as well.
medium-paced

Orwell and Churchill lived during some of the same times. Orwell was very aware of Churchill, obviously. Their politics brushed up against each other a bit (they were both anti-facist) but they came at it from very different perspectives.

I had known that Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War but did not know about his experiences nor the factionalization of the anti-Franco forces. This section was very interesting.

The analysis of each’s post war writings was well done.

I appreciated that Ricks gave us a well-rounded picture of each man including their strengths and failings.

I was a little put off by the speculation on what Orwell might think of today’s issues. I am not sure I would come to the same conclusions.