Churchill: The End of Glory : A Political Biography (Harvest/H B J Book) [Paperback]

John Charmley (Author)

Book Description

Series: Harvest/H B J Book | Publication Date: September 1994

Based on fifteen years' research in archives in Britain, France, and America, this new political biography reapprises the Churchill myth created by the man and his official biographer to reveal a complex figure who is far more interesting than the ideal leader he is so often presented to be.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A masterfully written reappraisal of the political life and actions of Winston Churchill.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Books on Churchill continue to flourish, but this work by British historian Charmley has attracted special attention in Britain. While ackowledging Churchill's greatness, Charmley terms him a "rogue elephant" who made many mistakes and whose fascination with war for its own sake often blinded him to the consequences of his strategies. He suggests, for instance, that Churchill should have disengaged from the war earlier. Criticism of Churchill abounds these days, and Charmley's revisionism is not the novelty that the hype about this book might suggest. In addition, Charmley gives little weight to the political constraints limiting both Churchill and FDR. His prose, while readable, is overfluent and often infelicitous. Still, this is a noteworthy and engaging treatment. Recommended for all collections on Churchill.
- Nancy C. Cridland, Indiana Univ. Libs., Bloomington
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 752 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt (on Demand) (September 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156001446
• ISBN-13: 978-0156001441
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,247,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Flawed premise but some valid criticism of Churchill, December 17, 2003

By 

chefdevergue (Spokane, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Churchill: The End of Glory : A Political Biography (Hardcover)

I regard Churchill as one of the alltime overrated figures in history, and certainly enjoy seeing him cut down to size. Charmley provides a veritable all-you-can-eat buffet for Churchill haters, as he recounts in excrutiating detail the extraordinarily flawed personality of Churchill.

After setting the stage by illustrating Churchill's early years as a relentless opportunist and self-promoter, Charmley begins to build his case that Churchill was not the great wartime leader that posterity would have us believe, and in fact did not even have a sound grasp of military operational strategy. The most glaring example is, of course, the Gallipoli Campaign, which was an unmitigated disaster and effectively ended Churchill's political career for more than two decades. Churchill had gotten his shot at the big time (by becoming First Lord of the Admiralty) and had blown it. When he got his second chance, he showed that he had learned effectively nothing in the intervening period about military operations. Throughout World War II, he would attempt to undertake various zany military campaigns, most of which were politely ignored by the Allied commanders.

While demonstrating Churchill's ineptitude in this area, Charmley (clearly a Neville Chamberlain apologist) builds a reasonably convincing case for Chamberlain, arguing that Chamberlain was using appeasement more as a tool for buying time than anything else. Far from being the naive optimist, Chamberlain was quite sure, argues Charmley, that Hitler was not to be trusted in any agreement. While giving Hitler what he wanted, Chamberlain was quietly building up Britain's military strength for the war he was sure to come. Because one cannot create a potent fighting force overnight, Chamberlain knew he had to buy time by whatever means necessary. Churchill, by contrast, was ready to rush into war with Germany in 1937-38, when Britain was in no way prepared to fight a continental war.

Up to this point, Charmley's treatment of Churchill is reasonable from a scholarly standpoint. He can make coherent arguments and back them up with citations and evidence. However, Charmley's main beef with Churchill has never been that he was reckless & impetuous, or that he wasn't the great military mastermind. Charmley's problem with Churchill is that he lost the British Empire. At this point, Charmley's book begins to fall apart.

Charmley is writing from the perspective of someone who thinks the British Empire was a pretty neat thing, and wishes that Britain still had its empire, just like the good old days. In subsequent writings, Charmley has taken his argument even further, casting FDR as an anti-imperial villain who had, as one of his wartime goals, the deliberate destruction of the old colonial empires. In Charmley's opinion, the primary goal of the British High Command during World War II should have been the preservation of the British Empire. The defeat of the Nazis and containment of the Soviet Union? Sure, the British could have tried to do that also, but the preservation of the Empire was the important thing.

In fact, the British High Command was trying to do exactly that, and was continually butting heads with General George Marshall over priorities in strategy. The US wanted as its goal the invasion of Europe proper, and had hoped to launch the Normandy campaign in 1943, a full year before D-Day. The British, by contrast, favored a peripheral approach, sending valuable resources to reclaim portions of British territory that had been seized by Germany & Japan. The British also wanted opportunities for their commanders (such as Montgomery) to win glory on the field. The concessions the US made to Britain, it can be argued, prolonged the war in Europe by up to a year.

So Charmley's argument that Churchill did not do enough militarily to preserve the Empire is not particularly valid. Charmley probably understands this, because he also comes as close he can to stating (without actually doing it) that maybe, just maybe, Churchill might have been well-advised to cut a deal with the Nazis, keep the Empire intact, and focus on the real enemy, which was (in Charmley's conservative viewpoint) the Soviet Union. Charmley does not explicitly say this, because he would then run the risk of being lumped into the same category as the likes of David Irving. However, he makes this argument repeatedly, in as an oblique a fashion as he can muster.

The whole problem is that Charmley bases his argument on the premise that the British Empire could in fact have been saved, and this is where the biggest flaws in this book creep in. Charmley would like to ignore the fact that the British Empire had been slowly coming apart at the seams since the Boer War. Even during Victoria's reign, Britain had been struggling to provide the resources necessary to maintain Imperial control. The attrition of World War I was effectively the final nail in the Imperial coffin; it was only a matter of time before the inevitable occurred. One only has to look at post-war France, which tried to restore its colonial empire by force, to see how things probably would have turned out for Britain.

One can also ask the question, is Charmley's belief that the Empire deserved to be preserved valid? This is definitely a matter of perspective. Did the British Empire ultimately do more harm than good? Conservatives like Charmley and Thomas Sowell may think that the British Empire overall was a good thing, but I do not agree with that at all. When you get right down to it, the Empire was simply the subjugation by Britain of other peoples & cultures by naked military force. I don't recall too many subject people voluntarily entering the British Empire. If FDR wasn't bent on destroying the British Empire, he should have been.

While Charmley does provide some valid criticism of Churchill in this book, overall his most important criticisms are based on some seriously flawed premises. In the end, this calls into question the ultimate scholarly value of the book. While it has certainly been controversial enough, does this book truly contribute much to the scholarly debate over Churchill and the history of the 20th century? I don't believe so.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Abridged Work, April 2, 2000

By 

Mark Alinsky - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Churchill: The End of Glory : A Political Biography (Harvest/H B J Book) (Paperback)

I was sorely disappointed when finishing the book, not because of poor authorship, but, on the contrary, because Charmley's abrupt ending after a laborious examination of Churchill's political career did not seem at all adequate. He begins with a lurid examination of Churchill's early life and transformation into a political maverick, assaying his beginnings as a freshman MP in 1901 to his rise as one of the most powerful statesmen in the world. Among the most engrossing, although not necessarily new, criticisms are the Prime Minister's deference to the Roosevelt administration's foreign policy, which the author believes, with very much justification, was a catalyst that helped to bring about the Cold War and the eventual dismemberment of the British Empire. Charmley also draws parallels with Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler in 1938 with that of Churchill's handling of Stalin in 1945, and infers Churchill was hypocritical in his criticism of the Munich Pact, in part because of his later policies with regard to the Soviet Union. But after the chapter on the fall of the Churchill government in 1945, the book wraps itself up with a conclusion of little more than two pages; this is hardly befitting such a monumental undertaking. Charmley does not take interest in documenting Churchill's postwar exploits, and makes almost no reference to his Fulton speech or his return to power in 1951. For those already familiar with the standard "song and dance" given by most Churchill biographers, this work is definitely worth your time, but those expecting a more plenary reference on all of Churchill's political career, not just that until 1945, should look elsewhere.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Impeccable Journalism and Investigative Orthodoxy, November 15, 2010

By 

Carol Miller (Mexico, D.F. Mexico) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Churchill: The End of Glory : A Political Biography (Harvest/H B J Book) (Paperback)

Charmley's book will hardly endear itself to Churchill supporters, but if they support this vain, opportunistic, self-serving political anomoly, they are grossly ignorant, and urgently need to study this exhaustive research, journalistic minutiae, and the carefully revised and seemingly endless sources, which only confirm the audacity, the mendacity and the scurillous use of position and influence to sustain an untenable career. The outrage of Gallipoli should have conviced Britain, but Churchill was skillful enough to cover his tracks, lay the blame elsewhere and always survive, to see others die another day. A remarkable, five-star accomplishment in history, biography and investigative reporting.