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4.55 AVERAGE
4.55 AVERAGE
Subtle? Nah. And complete with a fair amount of purple prose (sometimes Manchester just sticks song lyrics in between sections of chapters for what I guess is supposed to be dramatic effect.) But it doesn’t matter. This book gets to the essence of the myth of Churchill, and was a completely entertaining read.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
This volume of Manchester's masterful Churchill biography covers Churchill's "wilderness" - the many years he spent in Parliament trying to stop the rise of Nazi Germany with little power or support. It was fascinating to see how Churchill saw what was coming, and how the English leaders continued to cave to Hitler when they should have known better. There's much about this book to like, and much is sobering in the light of today's political and geopolitical situation.
However, I didn't like it as much as the first volume. It seem like it was a bit long to me and covered the subject in to much depth. Part of this is that there is little narrative arc - Churchill sees what's coming, tries to convince England, fails, and war comes anyway. Not much in the way of suspense. Nonetheless, a good read.
However, I didn't like it as much as the first volume. It seem like it was a bit long to me and covered the subject in to much depth. Part of this is that there is little narrative arc - Churchill sees what's coming, tries to convince England, fails, and war comes anyway. Not much in the way of suspense. Nonetheless, a good read.
An outstanding biography that explains the origins of Hitler's Reich and England's political landscape through the depression and the devastating effects of appeasement to Hitler. The narrator was able to speak in Churchill's voice through all his quotes and speeches and that was just delightful. A remarkable accomplishment.
Fascinating and powerful biography of Winston Churchill as he stood alone arguing against the popular “appeasement” strategy adopted by the great powers of Europe. Its surprisingly interesting and engaging though possibly a little bloated. I would say it felt repetitive, but I imagine that Winston was even more dismayed by the fact that no matter how many times he warned the British government of the rising German threat, they dismissed him. This is despite his frequent quoting of numbers and statistics of Nazi’s growing military power backed by Churchills surprisingly robust “spy”/informant network). Even as all that Churchill had warned about came to, chamberlain and much of the British government held on to their futile and detrimental policy of appeasement. As Churchill poignantly said of Neville after the Munich agreement, “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war.”
I'm working my way through this while also reading Churchill's autobiography. Manchester has been problematical for me--I loved American Caesar but found A World Lit only by Fire to be the equivalent of a freshman paper--too full of secondary sources either imperfectly checked, or muddied by a determinedly modern worldview.
I'm liking this so far, but I do not like how frequently he offers "facts" taken from the autobiography without citing them, or checking their veracity.
Okay, I'm leaving that. The book is good enough for me to venture into the second volume, the years 1932-1940.
I'm liking this so far, but I do not like how frequently he offers "facts" taken from the autobiography without citing them, or checking their veracity.
Okay, I'm leaving that. The book is good enough for me to venture into the second volume, the years 1932-1940.
Reading about Churchill shows how important even a flawed man can be. He was so needed at the time.
When my friend Mayor Ponto of Brookfield recommended a 3 volume series on Winston Churchill and each series was approximately 1,000 pages I thought no man was that interesting. I was wrong. Winston Churchill lived the adventure of a 1,000 men and no man was more consequential to the 20th century. War and politics are two of my three careers so the book was right up my alley. One of the key lessons learned is that you may find yourself on the back bench, shunned, ridiculed and written off - just be patient, because times and leadership required for those dark times changes.
Good, but not quite as good as the first. It focused so much on Hitler and appeasement that it seemed a little repetitive at times. One other minor annoyance was his use of foreign languages without translating them.