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2017
Korda on Britain in 1940
08
Jan
2018
By ANTOINE CAPET
Against the background of the retreat and escape of the British and French Armies, Korda poses the trial of strength between Halifax and Churchill. His not entirely novel thesis is that Churchill’s position of no truck with Hitler would have been untenable had the Dunkirk evacuation not been seen as a success in Britain. Like Churchill, Korda does not call it a success. But he offers Montgomery’s words to describe Britain’s mood. Escapees wore “a coloured embroidered patch on their sleeve with the title ‘Dunkirk.’ They thought they were heroes, and the civilian public thought so. It was not understood that the British Army had suffered a crushing defeat.”
Warrior and Savior: Multiple Churchill Volumes by John Harte
01
Dec
2017
By CHRISTOPHER H. STERLING
John Harte is preparing a five-volume series on Churchill’s life. He has already surpassed de Mendelssohn and Morgan with these two. Additional volumes will cover Churchill’s early years (to 1940) and his final two decades. A volume on British spy Sidney Reilly (dubbed, somewhat incongruously, Churchill’s Spy) will follow.
Churchill for Readers Who Read Monitors
25
Oct
2017
By ANTOINE CAPET
There seems to be a new trend in publishing: serious books in a format once the preserve of books for young people. Last year we had Cate Ludlow’s attractive "I Love Winston Churchill: 400 Fantastic Facts." Now, at the same keen price, we have this title by Richard Wiles in a series which already offers “graphic biographies” of Jane Austen, Cézanne, Leonardo and Shakespeare.
A Century and More of Churchill Art
09
Oct
2017
By KATIE DAVENPORT
Jonathan Black's book provides some interesting glimpses into Churchill's life and personality in art, though one has to wade through some disorganization to find said moments. With some guidance and revision, his book might have captured a more accurate portrayal of the titan of many moods and many faces.
“Damn the Dardanelles, they will be our grave.” – Admiral Fisher
25
Sep
2017
By BARRY GOUGH
Britain’s mercurial First Sea Lord in 1915 was nothing if not vociferous, and often indulged in exaggeration. But for Fisher and the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill, the Dardanelles proved to be just that, almost. Here is an insightful inquiry by noted naval historian Christopher Bell of Dalhousie University. His account of the ill-fated Dardanelles campaign is welcome testimony to how Winston Churchill’s career was temporarily ruined by events beyond his control. All the same, the book reminds us that at the time, Churchill’s critics, growing in strength and number, regarded him as a danger to British futures.
“Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom” – by Thomas Ricks
14
Sep
2017
By ANDREW ROBERTS
Although Winston Churchill and George Orwell never met or even corresponded, the American military historian Thomas Ricks has linked them in a book subtitled The Fight for Freedom. He fully accepts that they were “vastly dissimilar men, with very different life trajectories.” Churchill, the older by twenty-eight years, was much more robust, extroverted and oratorically fluent than Orwell, whom Ricks depicts as having a “phlegmatic and introverted personality.” It is true that Orwell named the hero of 1984 “Winston,” and that Churchill enjoyed the book so much he read it twice. But is that really enough of a connection to justify an entire book?
“Churchill, Roosevelt and Company: Studies in Character and Statecraft” – by Lewis E. Lehrman
06
Sep
2017
By WILLIAM JOHN SHEPHERD
Lehrman examines Churchill and Roosevelt through the teams they assembled: advisers, political officials and military leaders who worked for victory even as they argued over war strategy. His is not a history of the war, but an evaluation of people, decisions and events, a victory followed by a lost peace and decades of Cold War. A useful chronology and extensive endnotes, bibliography, and index are complemented by portrait photographs used as chapter headings, and two key appendices: a 1940 Roosevelt fireside chat, and Churchill’s victory speech in 1945.