Customer Reviews

Churchill (Wordsworth Military Library)

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If the front cover of Henry Pelling's Winston Churchill represented one of its chapters, or even one of its pages, we would get a description of a purpose driven Churchill moving along, and moving things along, while the many around him followed and/or reacted to him. Unfortunately, there would also be a few comments on every other person in the picture: each soldier at attention, and each military leader behind Churchill. It is possible there would also be a few lines on the photographer who isn't even pictured. Is this an overstatement? Perhaps. Yet in Winston Churchill too many are given space who should be footnoted or left out completely. I chose the book to discover more on one of modern history's most important people, but found myself trudging along rather than being gripped by such an interesting man. The book's weakness is in covering each segment of Winston's life in such detail that he is crowded into a myriad of events and seldom stands out. Joseph Lash's Eleanor and Franklin and Edmund Morris' The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt ably present the character and even essence of a pivotal leader, but here we have a Churchill who seldom comes alive, leaving the reader to know seemingly all that happened politically during his life, without obtaining a portrait of who Winston Churchill really was. With the exception of his parents, who are covered and discussed in good detail, Churchill's wife, brother, children and important friends and colleagues receive scant attention. I found it humorous that Churchill's courtship and marriage to Clementine was covered in three pages in the chapter "President of the Board of Trade."

Chapter nineteen, covering Churchill's travels and writings before his election as Prime Minister, shows what the book could have been. It is lively and interesting. The book also thrives in discussing World War II and its aftermath. While possibly overstating Churchill's role at the expense of the other Allied leaders, it does show that Britain's finest hour was due in large part to the leadership, force and facile tongue and pen of Winston Churchill. Yet, unless one is reading a dry textbook, World War II needs little help in selling itself; that the author could not make the majority of the book come alive is disappointing.

Churchill, as a soldier, writer, social reformer, innovator, leader and spectator was involved in and led more than half a century of British life and politics. For someone interested in these times Winston Churchill is a recommendable, and glimpses of Churchill come out: he loved to eat well, he loved to travel, when able he spent most mornings working from his bed, and he accustomed himself to luxury. Yet to learn more about Churchill the man, to comb the essence of who he was, the book does not leave you wanting more, it leaves you wanting something different.

henry pelling bio of churchill now reprinted remain one of the best book on churchill life . well worth reading.