Churchill's history of the Second World War is, and will remain, the definitive work. Lucid, dramatic, remarkable for its breadth and sweep and for its sense of personal involvement, it is universally acknowledged as a magnificent reconstruction.
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©1959 Cassell and Co. Ltd; ©1990 the Esate of Winston Churchill; (P)2007 BBC Audiobooks Ltd
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Everyone should read (or listen to) this book,
By Tesseract (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Second World War: Milestones to Disaster (Audible Audio Edition)
There are dozens of 5-star reviews for this audiobook on the Audible website, to which I don't have much to add, but only one review here on Amazon, so I'm writing to correct that. For a long time, I had been feeling rather ashamed of the extremely limited scope of my knowledge of WWII-- in high school world history classes, it tends to get quickly crammed in at the end of the year, and the lesson all too often consists of: "Pearl Harbor; 1941-1945; Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin versus Hitler; we won!" I'm reminded of a certain Simpsons episode where the children are streaming out of the school for summer, and Principal Skinner calls out from the steps, "Don't you want to know how World War II ended? We won!" That one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, tragedies in human history has been reduced to this in the American education system is beyond shameful. So I set out to rectify it, for myself at least, but didn't know where to start. There are lots of books on WWII, of course, but they tend to fall into three classes: informative but dry military histories that make me want to gouge my eyes out; exciting personal narratives that tell the story of a person or small group of people, but don't capture the scope of the whole war; and historical fiction, which is fun to read but defeats the point in this case, which for me was to learn about the actual war and not a made-up one.
The Second World War is unique in that it is the only existing account of the war by one of the major heads of state who lived it and directed it. If you read nothing else about World War II, I urge you to read (or listen to) this book. It is both a wonderful read (and an even more wonderful listen) and highly educational. Tastes great AND good for you! A note about the text: Churchill's The Second World War was originally a six-volume work, which contained the following volumes: 1. The Gathering Storm 2. Their Finest Hour 3. The Grand Alliance 4. The Hinge of Fate 5. Closing the Ring 6. Triumph and Tragedy He later personally condensed the work into four volumes: 1. Milestones to Disaster 2. Alone 3. The Grand Alliance 4. Triumph and Tragedy This book, Milestones to Disaster, is Volume 1 of the condensed 4-volume version. It covers the period from roughly 1920, or shortly after the end of The Great War (better known now as World War I), to April 1940, when the blitzkrieg began in earnest and Churchill was made prime minister. The story itself is remarkable enough. Churchill's writing is somehow both workmanlike and eloquent at the same time; his grasp of the political and military realities brilliant; his blending of epic war story, political intrigue, hair-raising battle scenes, and intensely personal narrative masterful. He takes the reader from the chambers of Parliament in London, to the frozen wastes of Norway, to the south Atlantic, and back again to the back garden of No. 10 Downing Street. While I'm no expert on WWII writings, I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say there are probably few other factual memoirs of the war that tell a story of this scope without bogging down into something with the consistency of sawdust. I should point out there are a few things this book is NOT. It is NOT the story of the Holocaust, and Churchill says so fairly early on. The horrors of the purges and concentration camps are mentioned, but that is all. It is NOT a truly all-encompassing compendium of the war. And it is NOT intended to be an objective history text. Churchill also makes that clear early on. Rather, it is one man's experience of the war, unapologetically told through the lens of his opinions, although that one man had access to more knowledge about the war than virtually anyone on the planet then or since. (I personally think this may be an advantage because its personal angle makes it inherently more accessible.) On top of all these remarkable qualities of the book itself, this particular audio version is superbly read by narrator Christian Rodska, who sounds eerily like Churchill and gives a rather good impression that Churchill himself is telling us the story of the war. I've compared Rodska's narration with clips of Churchill's actual speeches, and the accent, cadence, and inflection are spot-on, while the pitch and tenor of voice are not identical but similar enough to pass. The main difference is that Rodska has much better diction than Churchill, and thank goodness for that. Churchill talked like he had a mouthful of marbles, and I think I'd kill myself if I had to listen to 10 hours of that! The narration adopts Churchill's characteristic low-key, even delivery, but vibrates with emotion when the text calls for it. Rodska's reading throbs with the sense of foreboding and menace as Hitler's shadow stretched across Europe in the 1930s. It burns with Churchill's outrage, frustration, and even despair as his years of warnings and dire predictions go continually unheeded, and numerous opportunities to stop the German threat with little or no violence pass away and are lost. (Indeed, when asked after the war what it should be called, Churchill promptly replied, "The Unnecessary War.") And it aches with the misery and loss of life on the battlefield as Europe's manhood dashed itself against the anvil of war. The book does have a few cons, but they are minor in my opinion and quite forgivable. First, because it is a personal narrative, and Churchill's most immediate experience was as a British politician, it focuses at times quite heavily on the inner workings of the British government and its intrigues and clashes. The resulting parade of personages can be confusing, and while listening to it, I often wished I had a Cast of Characters to refer to. Second, Churchill is a bit heavy-handed with the "I told you so" routine. When I heard him issue a disclaimer at the beginning in which he states that he does not condemn any course of action in the book unless he personally went on public record against it at the time, I had a feeling there was about to be a lot of "I told you so" coming, and I wasn't wrong. To hear Churchill tell it, one might almost conclude that no one had any intelligent ideas about how to conduct the war other than himself... and possibly Hitler. Final Note: If you get a trial or short-term membership to Audible.com, you will quickly notice they have lots of members-only sales at which you can pick up audiobooks for the bargain-basement price of $4 or $5 per book, which is a steal for audiobooks. I picked this volume up during one of those sales for $5. Or use the free credit you'll get with your membership.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful History of the cause of WW2,
This review is from: The Second World War: Milestones to Disaster (Audible Audio Edition)
If you want to know what really happened to bring on the events that lead up to world war 2 from a man who was there from the beginning, this is it. A great narrative from a historical figure, of what happen to bring on this terrible event in the European theater. The narrative starts from the end of WW1 to the entrance of America into the fight. Will open your eyes to why this was a war that could of been avoided.
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