The Last Lion by William Manchester

[pscot]

This is the best biography I've ever read. Churchill is arguably the most interesting figure of the first half of the 20th century. He was a soldier, a statesman, a politician, a journalist and historian. He was an amateur painter of considerable ability who laid bricks for recreation, and in his youth he was a dominating polo player. He invented the tank. He was a crack shot, who, fom the mid-30's on carried a pistol because of nazi death threats, not because he was afraid, he was fearless, but because he wanted to be able to kill or disable a would-be assassin. He was the most gifted orater of his time and an inspired war leader who possessed an unconquerable heart. Manchester does justice to him in all his facets, including his flaws. In the process, he provides a clear and comprehensive picture of the workings of the English government from 1900 to 1940. His discription of the Appeasment of the dictators, during which Winston Churchill stood alone in opposition, ostracized by Chamberlain's group, is jaw dropping. At almost 1600 pages, I found myself wanting more. I bought both volumes used at Amazon for less than $10 each. It took me a month to read, but the time was well spent.

[kayob1]

1. Thanks for the recommendation!

[Two Sheds]

2. It's damned entertaining but I think Manchester fell way too much in love

with his subjects (I include Douglas MacArthur). Churchill's greatest asset was that he wrote history almost at the same time he made history. It has helped his image enormously. To balance out the picture of pre-war Britain, I recommend AJP Taylor's The Origins of the Second World War. Taylor's book was controversial when it came out. He maintains that Churchill used cooked statistics about German rearmament. Also, to defuse criticism of Chamberlain from some quarters, Taylor makes it very clear that the policy of appeasement was approved by an overwhelming majority of Britons at the time. When Hitler went back on his word at Munich, Chamberlain knew that war was inevitable but he couldn't have gotten the country behind an aggressive policy before then.
Don't forget also that if not completely ready by September, 1939, England had somewhat rearmed itself under Chamberlain before Churchill was brought into his government as First Lord of the Admiralty. The most effective criticism of Churchill by Manchester comes in the second volume when he describes how Churchill destroyed an earlier movement for building England's defenses by his disastrous support of Edward VIII in the abdication crisis.
I would also recommend The Last Lion but my favorite Manchester books are The Arms of Krupp and his memoir of his war service in the Pacific, Goodbye Darkness.

[pscot]

3. Manchester acknowledges

the pacifist bent of most Englishmen during the thirties, but he also makes the case that the populace was kept in the dark about what was happening in Austria and Czechkoslovakia(sic) after the Nazis moved in. The press was to some extent muzzled and also cooperated willingly with HMG to suppress the new of German atrocities and of the ongoing slauhgter of the jews. The policies of Chamberlain and his inner circle were disgusting. The Czecks were tied up with a ribbon and delivered into the jaws of hell, and Chamberlain took a bow for it. There simply is no way to whitewash his behavior.

[Captain Hilts]

5. FDR sent Chamberlain a congratulatory note. Other world leaders did too. nt

[Captain Hilts]

4. I'm not a Manchester fan, but I AM a Churchill fan. Our closest thing to WSC is Theo Roosevelt...

Both were batshit crazy, scholars, soldiers and moralists.

Martin Gilbert almost succeeds in making Churchill boring. An amazing book!

I'm not sure which is my favorite. I recently spent a couple of hours with a book that analyzed the politics of Churchill's writing his WWII memoirs. That was really interesting.

I think Meacham's "Franklin and Winston" was very good. Better than "Roosevelt and Churchill."