Scan barcode
book_concierge's review against another edition
3.0
3.5***
Historian John Lukacs has written over twenty books, several dealing with World War II. In this book he focuses specifically on Winston Churchill and the five days from May 24 to May 28, 1940. Churchill did not win the war in those five days, but his actions and leadership ensured that England would NOT lose the war.
Lukacs did extensive research, pouring over diaries, letters, journals, official memoranda and newspaper reports of the time, to illuminate and reconstruct the thought-processes and leadership that ultimately ensured the Allies’ success. We obviously know the outcome already, but Lukacs manages to convey the sense of urgency and tension and uncertainty of this moment in history.
This is a slim volume, but very dense and I had to remind myself a few times that the timespan was a mere five days.
Historian John Lukacs has written over twenty books, several dealing with World War II. In this book he focuses specifically on Winston Churchill and the five days from May 24 to May 28, 1940. Churchill did not win the war in those five days, but his actions and leadership ensured that England would NOT lose the war.
Lukacs did extensive research, pouring over diaries, letters, journals, official memoranda and newspaper reports of the time, to illuminate and reconstruct the thought-processes and leadership that ultimately ensured the Allies’ success. We obviously know the outcome already, but Lukacs manages to convey the sense of urgency and tension and uncertainty of this moment in history.
This is a slim volume, but very dense and I had to remind myself a few times that the timespan was a mere five days.
chairmanbernanke's review against another edition
3.0
A good historical account of the days and perceptions.
abevigodless's review against another edition
3.0
Crabbed in style and formally somewhat airless -- perhaps not unlike the negotiations of the War Cabinet -- nonetheless Lukacs makes a persuasive argument that late May 1940 was a "hinge" moment in history. He rehabilitated Chamberlain somewhat in my eyes, and forcefully shows the importance of this "microhistory" in the concluding chapter. I would have appreciated more thorough contextualization of the lead-up to the "Black Fortnight" early on, but perhaps the desired effect was to drop the reader right into 10 Downing Street. Lukacs doesn't have the narrative ability of historians like Barbara Tuchman or CV Wedgwood (who else does?), but nonetheless this is marvelously researched and written so as to make the voices of the people who lived through these dark days plangently clear.
ncrabb's review against another edition
3.0
I’m always a bit skittish with books that claim that a specific small time period became a hinge on which all of human history swung thereafter. I always get a bit suspicious that this is someone’s thesis desperately seeking importance in an information-saturated world. So I approached this with some care; indeed, it has been on a to-read pile for years. My skittishness was replace by fascination once I got into the book.
Winston Churchill is just hours into his prime ministership as the book begins. All of Europe is at the very crossroads of oppression. Hitler’s forces are poised to push farther into territory Britain had hoped to defend. Its expeditionary force was literally on the run, and the stark existential question Churchill and others had to face was whether to fight Hitler or scramble to negotiate and get the best terms possible.
Churchill argued that by staying in the fight, Britain may well lose, but it would at least get the opportunity to save much or all of its fleet by sending it to Canada. Lord Halifax argued that rather than face total humiliation, Britain needed to negotiate some kind of peace.
This book, then, is essentially the record of those five days in late May when Britain had to decide whether it wanted peace or victory. The country’s leaders were bright enough to know that they wouldn’t likely achieve full-on victory, but they could fight and perhaps garner better terms from Hitler than they would have gotten from rapid capitulation.
As one excellent reviewer on Goodreats explained, Hitler failed to win because Churchill refused to lose. Hitler ultimately didn’t have the air superiority necessary to cross the channel decisively, and he was in some ways more interested in capturing the resource-rich land that would become the Soviet Union.
You not only get a look at the debates here within the war cabinet, you get letters and diary entries that support the author’s contentions. He asserts that those five days created echoes that reverberated through much of the remainder of the twentieth century. A worthy thoughtful read for anyone interested in World War II history.
Winston Churchill is just hours into his prime ministership as the book begins. All of Europe is at the very crossroads of oppression. Hitler’s forces are poised to push farther into territory Britain had hoped to defend. Its expeditionary force was literally on the run, and the stark existential question Churchill and others had to face was whether to fight Hitler or scramble to negotiate and get the best terms possible.
Churchill argued that by staying in the fight, Britain may well lose, but it would at least get the opportunity to save much or all of its fleet by sending it to Canada. Lord Halifax argued that rather than face total humiliation, Britain needed to negotiate some kind of peace.
This book, then, is essentially the record of those five days in late May when Britain had to decide whether it wanted peace or victory. The country’s leaders were bright enough to know that they wouldn’t likely achieve full-on victory, but they could fight and perhaps garner better terms from Hitler than they would have gotten from rapid capitulation.
As one excellent reviewer on Goodreats explained, Hitler failed to win because Churchill refused to lose. Hitler ultimately didn’t have the air superiority necessary to cross the channel decisively, and he was in some ways more interested in capturing the resource-rich land that would become the Soviet Union.
You not only get a look at the debates here within the war cabinet, you get letters and diary entries that support the author’s contentions. He asserts that those five days created echoes that reverberated through much of the remainder of the twentieth century. A worthy thoughtful read for anyone interested in World War II history.
kfrench1008's review against another edition
3.0
An interesting five days, to be sure, but I found the telling of the story a bit scattered. Lukacs obviously wanted to show all of what was happening, but jumping from the war cabinet to a description of vacation packages offered in British papers that week was disjointed.
fivetilnoon's review
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
3.0
The author's position is that the Churchill-Halifax split in May 1940 was the pivotal moment of World War II. Halifax wanted to strike a deal with Italy for peace terms with Germany. Churchill claimed this would set Britain on a slippery slope and rejected it. The author claims that when Churchill got his way, this guaranteed that Britain would not lose the war. He correctly points out that it was the Russians and Americans that won the war.
The book is not exactly action packed and consists almost entirely of cabinet meetings, speeches, diary entries, mass observation reports, and memoirs. A short book and easy enough to get through in bite size pieces. I enjoyed it.
The book is not exactly action packed and consists almost entirely of cabinet meetings, speeches, diary entries, mass observation reports, and memoirs. A short book and easy enough to get through in bite size pieces. I enjoyed it.