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Title: Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert ISBN: 0-8050-2396-8 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: October, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.78 (32 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: One of the better biographies I've read for some time......
Comment: Martin Gilbert is a prodigious writer and a fine historian. In Churchill: A Life, Gilbert presents an encompassing view of Great Britain's most dynamic historical figure. Little need be said in this review about Churchill, a man larger than life, as that life has been voluminously recorded. However, Gilbert has provided an account that is eminently readable, fascinating in detail, thoroughly engrossing, and bottom-line, simply a pleasurable experience.
As a biographical subject, Churchill has certainly received more negative analysis than Gilbert proffers, but Gilbert takes great care to explain where unwarranted criticism of Churchill's actions and beliefs are, in themselves, errant. Surely, Churchill's politics, in a career that spanned nearly a lifetime, will provide at least some fodder for anyone. By and large, however, Churchill was exactly the prescription required to pull Great Britain through the horrors of World War II.
Not since Truman, by David McCullough, have I enjoyed a biography this much. I recommend the book highly as it deserves, every bit, a rating of five stars.
Rating: 5
Summary: A wonderful intoduction to Churchill
Comment: Martin Gilbert, the immensly readible author of the official biography of Winston Churchill, here offers a one volume life of his hero. Not a condensation of the eight volume official life, it is instead a work that stands alone as perhaps the best one volume life of Churchill yet written.
The book is a "cradle to grave" biography which consentrates, understandably, on the years during World War Two, when Churchill was Prime Minister. Gilbert's mastery of his subject is evident throughout, as he weaves domestic and foriern politics with ease, and gives us many interesting nuggets on Churchill's home life. This book again proves Gilbert to be the master Churchill historian of our era.
Being familiar with the official biography, I am saddened by how much Gilbert had to cut out for Churchill: A Life. But condensation from eight volumes to one is no easy task, and Gilbert handles it wonderfully. For both the casual history buff, and the Churchill enthusiast, Churchill: A Life is a must read. I hope you do.
Rating: 5
Summary: Compared to William Manchester's...
Comment: I liked much better this book than those of William Manchester. The story is linear and one feels the author's absolute knowledge of the life of Churchill. Gilbert's admiration of Churchill is apparent. I heard he has written an eight volume (official) biography of which this book is a very comprehensive and very-very well written abridgement, in other words the eight volumes are distilled" into one. I also think the quotations are much better selected, Churchill's often very long speeches are very well compressed (my favourite is the speech after Munich). This gives the impression - at least to me - of having read a whole speech, whereas in Manchester's book it never really happens and the speeches are usually followed or preceded by the author's comments. I felt Gilbert keeps a greater distance from his subject, the book is more like a frame and lets the reader build up Churchill's personality with his imagination. Also this might be important to some (like myself) that Gilbert's language is easier to understand.
The Manchester books are of a very different character, not linear, much more personal, the author presents a lot of insight, and tells his opinion or judgement on a variety of subjects and choses the right quotations to underline these. These two volumes of Manchester contain a lot more information and interesting details. I usually agreed with his judgements but i sometimes felt he was forcing and repeating them too strong and too often. A great advantage though is that we learn a lot more about the outside world.
Churchill's book on WWII has a part which is called the Gathering storm" meaning the approaching Nazi danger for the democracies. For Hitler Churchill was the gathering storm", a phenomenon which is impossible to ignore and whose thunderous" speeches and articles were so loud" and powerful. It was nothing else but the power and truth in his speeches that made him so menacing to the Nazis as he was distrusted by all parties of parliament and indeed by the whole population.This was the reason why he was attacked publicly as a simple MP by Hitler in the late thirties when Hitler was the all powerful leader of Germany and Churchill only a political outcast.
I heard people describing Churchill as a born leader. I disagree. I don't think he was a born leader. He was a genius, the largest human being of our time" but I think these were not the traditonal leadership qualities that made him emerge to become a strong man and a very powerful leader but his courage and his very deep comprehension of history and the power of justice on his side. Without the truth being on his side i think he would never have been a great leader (unlike Stalin or Chamberlain or Hitler).
After reading it one gives credit to the British people and also to their parlamentary system for being so rubust and being able to defend itself in times of great danger. After this book it seems that no attempt were made to bypass it even when it seemed that the present rulers (Baldwin and Chamberlain) were leading it to certain destruction.
Very good idea and makes it much easier to find something in the book afterwards is that on the top of each page the year of the actual story is shown.
Although the author avoids making many personal comments, the book is so well built up and the story itself is so full of drama that it is hard to put down. I am looking forward to reading other works of Gilbert, who really became my favourite historian (I hope they'll be translated into Hungarian soon).
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Title: The Wit & Wisdom of Winston Churchill by James C. Humes, Richard M. Nixon ISBN: 0060925779 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 25 January, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: In Search of Churchill : A Historian's Journey by Martin Gilbert ISBN: 0471180726 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 04 February, 1997 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Second World War: A Complete History by Martin Gilbert ISBN: 0805017887 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: December, 1991 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Alone 1932-1940 by William Manchester ISBN: 0316545120 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 28 October, 1988 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
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Title: The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932 by William Manchester ISBN: 0316545031 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 30 May, 1983 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
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