Customer Reviews

Churchill

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Prior to the appearance of this biography, by Whitbread Award winning author Roy Jenkins, the only single volume work that I would have recommended to people would have been Sir Martin Gilbert's one volume biography. Gilbert has spent the better part of his life creating the definitive biography originally started by Churchill's son Randolph, and he continues to add 1,000 page companion volumes of documents that supplement the massive primary work.

If a reader were to select this work by Jenkins they would not gain a complete insight into the legendary figure that Sir Winston Spencer Churchill is. That a new biography approaching 1,000 pages made the NYT Bestseller's List is a testimony to Churchill's place in history. I doubt there is a politician that is more quoted than Sir Winston. The primary differences between the two books I mention are of style and completeness. Martin Gilbert in an accomplished historian, while Mr. Jenkins writes from a perspective of a man who sat in the House of Commons, witnessed Churchill in action, and documents his life primarily as a politician. There are formative episodes that are not included at all, which in the end prevents this very fine work from being a well-rounded documentary. A young Churchill spent time in Ireland, but this was never mentioned. The downfall of his father was much more complicated than the space allotted in this work, and his mother too is not represented enough.

The book also lacks extended time with the Churchill who was an amazing raconteur at dining tables from a very young age. Many of the great quotes from Churchill are not in this book, and many others are given short shrift. Mr. Jenkins style also takes a bit more effort than many may choose to expend. William F. Buckley Jr. could certainly breeze through some of the extremely arcane English that is used, but most would be well advised to have a dictionary handy. The author is also given to liberal uses of the French Language, often illustrating how Churchill's poor French was easily misinterpreted. A foreign language that is not footnoted or translated in place is presumptuous and harmful to a work, expecting readers to not only be fluent but competent enough to manage error prone French is just a bad way to present a book.

This is really a memoir of Churchill as remembered by Mr. Jenkins, and, as such it is a worthwhile read. For anyone starting out on his or her education on Churchill this is most certainly not the place to start. The official biography of Gilbert's is the best, but the multiple volumes, 10,000+ page works is much more than most would wish to tackle. The work is very readable; so if you are inclined do not hesitate. Sir Martin Gilbert's single volume work remains the standard, and William Manchester has produced two of what was to be a three-volume work. His health has prevented its completion, but his two completed volumes are excellent on their own.

There are dozens of single volume works on Churchill that have a narrower focus and better serve the reader. This book is very worthwhile for those who are great admirers of Churchill and have read many, or perhaps dozens of others. As a stand-alone work it does not give enough information and the style can lack clarity. Eventually worth a read, but should not be at or near the top of a reading list on Churchill.

What most reviews don't tell you is that Roy Jenkins, himself a politician, has created an almost purely political biography of Churchill. Even more narrowly, it is a focused on the House of Commons and Churchill's role in it over a span of some 50 years.
In more than 900 pages, Jenkins barely touches on Churchill's personal life, his relationship with "Clemmie," his children or with anyone outside the closeted world of British politics. The little details of daily life, which provide density and color -- what brand of cigars he smoked, what books he read for pleasure, what he ate for breakfast -- are almost entirely missing.

A greater fault, in my view, is that Jenkins fails to adequately explore and explain Churchill's place in the decline and fall of the British Empire, which took place in great part during Churchill's watches. This is a story, as Jenkins tells it, mostly of the Old Boy's club, of Asquith and Lloyd George and Chamberlain and all the rest. Reading Jenkins, you would hardly know that during the course of Churchill's life one of the world's greatest powers and greatest empires became an also ran on the world's stage.

Granted, Jenkins is a masterful writer with a great grasp of the politics of 20th century Britain. If politics, in great detail, is all you demand of a biography, then Roy Jenkins' Churchill will suit you very adequately.

--Lan Sluder

Jenkins, a history professor and Member of Parliament himself as well as the author of an acclaimed bio of Gladstone, presents a fine biography of Britain's greatest 20th century figure.

His own experiences uniquely qualify him to describe Churchill's political fortunes and maneuverings, although the American reader may find the Teens and Twenties either slow going or not sufficiently illuminating of Britain's odd political system, wherein politicians regularly shopped around for a district to represent, even after being defeated in another.

This is a fairly traditional public and political bio, not a psychoanalysis (not to imply that Churchill HAD much of a personal life to expose), and moves along at a surprisingly good clip despite its 900-plus pages.

Jenkins fully reminds us that Churchill basically earned his living as a writer -- the contracts, writing schedules, and royalties are carefully recorded -- though politics was his avocation.

The author writes cleanly and engagingly, though he seems inordinately fond of unnecessarily unusual words like "psephological" and "rumbustious." On the other hand, his wit is dry and regularly in evidence.

The U.S. hardcover edition by Farrar, Straus & Giroux is clean until about the halfway point, whereupon one begins to encounter "Feburary" (436), "replies hardly every being allowed" (553) "shore up the the" (706), "dimayed" (721), "The opposition could chose when to relax" (837-8), and similar infelicities.

All in all, Jenkins seems to strike a nice balance between a healthy respect for his subject and a clear eye for Churchill's weaknesses, changes of direction, and occasional seizures of dishonesty.

Well illustrated with more than 90 b&w photos.

Every decade or so a new biography emerges on Winston Churchill, usually not of quality, or containing new substance. I am a big fan of William Manchester's multivolume 'Last Lion' study, and was happily surprised to find new and interesting content presented here in a very readable manner. Roy Jenkins has incorporated some revisionist views, and wonderful prose in what may be the most accessible single volume biography of Britain's most often quoted politician. It is a magnificent piece of work and is highly recommended.

Most of the reviewers of the book seem to be Churchill experts. The forget that the vast majority of the people who will read the book are Churchill-uninformed.
It is true that there are other extraordinary biographies, especially Gilbert's multivolume one. But for the uninitiated this one is among the best. The average reader will be fascinated by the life of the "Great Man" and will not even notice the small subtleites that the "experts" mention.
If you are interested in History, Biography, Leadership, Life, Greatness, then read this book. You will learn much, enjoy much and greatly enhance your knowledge of more than one topic.
Leave the minutiae for the connoisseurs (even if you want to be one, this is the place to start!).

This is a wonderful biography. Jenkins has an easygoing story style that is fun to read. He also opens the door and shows the internal workings of Churchill's greatness.

So many "great man" biographies concentrate on great events and great decisions, to the exclusion of understanding the unique contributions of the man. This book examines the political and literary education which Churchill brought to the table in World War II, the great and small dramas which marked his long accomplished life.

Writing a master work on Marlborough was a form of self-education, as was Churchill's history of the English Speaking Peoples. Both elevated his expectations for the British people in war, and he lead them to fulfill his elevated expectations. The historian as leader....

Endless parliamentary debates, including some very real humiliations, gave Churchill a tempered sense of what he could accomplish -- this idealist was probably only ready to lead at age 65, because this education broke against the prow of his stubborn sense of right and wrong.

Jenkins captures these formative influences with nuance and drama. This book is an excellent one-volume biography, and provides a daunting argument that life's challenges educate a great leader in a rough and tumble; that self-education also plays a role; that meeting great challenges is the work of a lifetime; that losing and defeat play their role...

By the way, this book is not bloated, as one review says, unless you prefer the comic book approach.

This is a very good book, with a strong enough story line through Churchill's life that I found it hard to put down. It captures much of what readers are looking to know about Churchill.

It is strongest for the insights into WSC's political life (which is quite a strength as that was WSC's core). Jenkins' own political background is no doubt a huge asset. The writing is generally strong, though sometimes idiosyncratic and overgrown. I appreciated the strongly British view and tone, as it provided a feeling of voice for the author and seems necessary for Jenkins' to convey his political analysis.

It is weakest in its ability to convey a complete sense of the heart and soul of the man, something a biography must do to some degree to be wholly successful. For example, WSC's relations with politicians are skillfully described, but his family and personal relationships are sketchy. Also, the book sometimes assumes a detailed understanding of the background historical events, so it may help to have another reference source to fill in the gaps if you aren't up to speed on, say, the points at issue in the Suez crisis. A couple dozen sentences would have gone a long way to fixing this. It also gets bogged down at times in the discussions of WSC's books, and in parliamentary details.

So I'd underscore the Booklist and Publisher's Weekly descriptions (see them here in Editorial Reviews), as well as the comments of some reviewers here. The New York Times review gushes and glosses over some of the limitations of the book; it's not much of a guide.

Few figures so capture the public imagination as does Winston Churchill. In many ways he is remembered as being larger than life, a man of great scope, wit, and imagination, and a very complicated human being indeed. I may be in the minority here, but I didn't find this biographical work by English historian and sometime politician Roy Jenkins particularly compelling. Jenkins' writing style is at times more than a bit stuffy, and he has an unfortunate tendency to lapse into very formal English, as one might expect someone with the author's impeccable academic pedigree would be prone to do. This stylistic approach hampers the exposition of a very long, convoluted, and often tediously selective set of recollections about Churchill, as often as not based on incidents witnessed by the author. While having the capability to recall such personal experiences with one of the most famous figures of the 20th century sometimes makes for fascinating reading (and sometimes not), it does not necessarily make for a comprehensive or balanced biographical picture of the subject at hand. Therein lies my problem with the book.

Yet it would be unfair and inaccurate to dismiss this massive, well-researched, and occasionally quite brilliant treatment of Mr. Churchill as a personal memoir. Had I not already read a number of other authors' efforts (most notably Sir Martin Gilbert) regarding Churchill, I might not be so critical of the present effort by Mr. Jenkins. Of course, Sir Gilbert is the single most acknowledged Churchill scholar, and his output in this regard borders on the unbelievable. However, he is an incredibly prolific writer, and the list of his books boggles the mind of the average reader (including yours truly). And there have been others who have offered the reader a much more comprehensive, balanced, and coherent portrait of Winston Churchill. Moreover, one can always turn to the mammoth works penned by Churchill himself, which while of questionable objectivity, certainly represent an authoritative interpretation of his experiences, especially during the conduct of the Second World War.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that this is the first book that I have read by Mr. Jenkins. If it is indeed representative of his style and approach, it will likely also be the last. Once again, This is not to say that there is not a lot of substantive work here, but rather to caution the reader that this is more often a set of personal recollections about his personal experiences in the vicinity of Churchill, or during the times of Churchill, than it is a balanced, comprehensive, and objective biography of Churchill or an accurate history of his times. Taken for what it is, it is a good, if long and tiring, read. I can recommend it with these qualifications. But if you are looking for a more conventional, approachable, and readable biography of Churchill, look for my review of Sir Martin Gilbert's biography of Winston Churchill. Enjoy!

This is a very different biography from several other lives of Churchill I've read. Roy Jenkins is a parliamentarian and a former British government Minister. His biography calls upon the reader for an almost encyclopedic knowledge of British history from the 1860's onward. It would be good to know of the various crises in Gladstone's premiership for example, and about who was on various sides of British parliamentary politics when Joseph Chamberlain was central to British governmental policies. I think this is a rather tough knowledge base for all but the most Anglophile of American readers; it makes it somewhat tough going for even fairly scholarly laypeople.

That said, the book is very well written and gives the flavor of Churchill as a British politician struggling through ups and downs, times he was popular, times in the wilderness. It is a very balanced view--this is definitely not the 'Churchill as hero who saved civilization' view. This is the Churchill as an admittedly great man who used every advantage of his Duke grandfather and Chancellor of the Exchequer father and femme fatale mother to get where he wanted to go--the top, quickly.

I've enjoyed the book and appreciated the balance but sometimes had to persist through tough going for an American.

No figure in 20th century British history has received more biographical attention than Churchill. Can the general reader profit from yet another biography? Most readers of Roy Jenkins' new study will likely answer with a resounding "yes!"

Jenkins, the author of excellent biographies of Baldwin, Asquith and, most recently, Gladstone, has provided interesting and provocative insights into Churchill's career as politician, statesman and writer. Jenkins dosen't lay claim to comprehensiveness (see Martin Gilbert's multi-volume study and his companion volumes of documents for this), nor does he provide new or revelatory information. In fact, though the hardback edition of this work exceeds 900 pages, some aspects of Churchill's staggeringly large and diverse life are (necessarily) not treated thoroughly; Churchill's private life and his interest in empire are two areas which come to mind.

Yet, the strengths of this work vastly overcome any such minor shortcomings. Having been a member of Parliament for many years as well as a Cabinet Minister, and (also like Churchill) an accomplished author, Jenkins bring unique insights into Churchill's political, ministerial and writing careers. The problem for any biographer of Churchill (except Gilbert, who considers everything), is which material, which aspects of Churchill's life to emphasize. Jenkins selects the right ones and Churchill's personality inevitably emerges: a man of unbounded energy, consummate political skill and (during Britain's darkest (and finest)hour) brilliant leadership.

Still, Jenkins does not neglect his subject's shortcomings: Churchill was ambitious to a fault, at times petulant, more often inconsiderate of his subordinates. The very human portrait which emerges commands our respect and admiration all the more and will leave many with the same conclusion reached by Jenkins--Churchill was the greatest man ever to occupy 10 Downing Street.

Jenkins has an easy, if somewhat erudite style which I found compelling. But, for those unfamiliar with the outlines of 20th century British history, this work may appear puzzling at times. A brief glossary of British political terms at the start provides some (limited) help. The text also include a few color plates of Churchill's most interesting paintings.