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Books
“Unsinkable” – by Richard Freeman
10
Oct
2016
By WILLIAM JOHN SHEPHERD
Churchill’s remarkable rise, fall, and return to power—which caused one newspaper to dub him “the unsinkable politician”—is already magisterially chronicled by Sir Martin Gilbert in Winston S. Churchill, vol. 3, The Challenge of War, 1914-1916; and The Churchill Documents, vols. 6-7, At the Admiralty and The Escaped Scapegoat. So the question to ask about any new book on the topic is whether it tells us anything more, or improves on or presents a different take than Gilbert. The almost inevitable answer is “no,” making it incumbent upon reviewers to advise potential readers why they should invest time reading such works as "Unsinkable."
Touch of the Other – Sir Colin Coote’s The Other Club
12
Sep
2016
“Churchill in the Trenches” – by Peter Apps
29
Aug
2016
By WILLIAM JOHN SHEPHERD
Though it relates the familiar anecdotes of Churchill's military service, Peter App's self-published ebook ultimately relies too much on other sources, and suffers from a lack of editing or editorial content. It is, to paraphrase Churchill, a modest book, with much to be modest about.
“With Winston Churchill at the Front” – by Andrew Dewar Gibb
22
Aug
2016
By WILLIAM JOHN SHEPHERD
Gibb’s original work, nine chapters and 112 pages, was a slender volume, notable as an early firsthand account of Churchill’s military sojourn after his famous fall from political power in 1915. This new edition is an odd but useful amalgamation of Gibb’s 1924 text with copious extractions or rewrites from Sir Martin Gilbert’s first volume (The Challenge of War) in the official biography, Winston S. Churchill.
“Pim and Churchill’s Map Room” – by John Potter
24
Jul
2016
By ANDREW ROBERTS
This fine little book distills Captain Pim’s memoirs, which are lodged in the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast. Expertly edited by John Potter, it offers charming vignettes of what it was like to work for Churchill, as Pim saw him on an almost daily basis and travelled with him to almost all the wartime conferences.
“Hero of the Empire” – by Candice Millard
18
Jul
2016
1
By ANDREW ROBERTS
Millard's book covers one year in the life of Winston Churchill—1899—and argues that those twelve months were absolutely epicentral to the man he later became. It established his national fame, connected his fate to that of the British Empire, introduced him to key figures who were to loom large later in his life, and set him on the road to his phenomenally successful political career.
“Marshall: The Man of the Age” – edited by Mark Stoler & Daniel Holt
08
Jul
2016
By PATRICK GARRITY
George Marshall’s stature among Americans of the mid-twentieth century is easily forgotten today. He had his critics—the MacArthur men in the Army and, later, some rabid anti-communists—but, in his role as Army Chief of Staff and principal military advisor to President Roosevelt, he was acclaimed as the “organizer of victory” in World War II. In his Nobel Lecture, he acknowledged his “inability to express myself with the power and penetration of the great Churchill.”
“The British Mad Dog” – by M.S. King
01
Jul
2016
2
“Churchill on Europe” – by Felix Klos
21
Jun
2016
“The Maisky Diaries” – edited by Gabriel Gorodetsky
23
May
2016
2
By RICHARD M. LANGWORTH
Maisky was fortunate. Though recalled from London in mid-1943 and retired in 1945, he did not suffer the fate of so many Soviet diplomats. He was arrested in 1953, and Stalin’s death may have saved his life. He was released from prison in 1955, and died in 1975 aged 91. He wrote five volumes of memoirs, discreet and judicious, of course. Now thanks to Gabriel Gorodetsky he gets full vindication: his every thought is revealed.