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Churchill, by Paul Johnson
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- Sales Rank: #4332030 in Books
- Published on: 2009
- Binding: Audio CD
Most helpful customer reviews
233 of 238 people found the following review helpful.
The most inspiring biography I read this year -- and just 192 pages!
By Jesse Kornbluth
"Of all the towering figures of the twentieth century, both good and evil, Winston Churchill was the most valuable to humanity, and also the most likable. It is a joy to write his life, and to read about it. None holds more lessons, especially for youth: How to use a difficult childhood. How to seize eagerly on all opportunities, physical, moral and intellectual. How to dare greatly, to reinforce success, and to put the inevitable failures behind you. And how, while pursuing vaulting ambition with energy and relish, to cultivate also friendship, generosity, compassion and decency."
That's the opening paragraph of Paul Johnson's "Churchill", and if you appreciate clarity, authority and verve in historical writing, you will understand why I gulped down the next 190 pages and now declare it the most exciting biography I read in 2009.
I've studied Churchill; we all have. But the breadth of the man gets lost in a handful of anecdotes and film clips. Paul Johnson delivers the big picture and the tiny detail. So masterful is his approach, so sharp is his observation, so exacting his sense of detail that it's not hard to agree with his assessment --- Churchill saved the world as we know it.
And not Churchill the God, but Churchill the extremely interesting man. Johnson piles on the detail. Yes, Churchill drank whiskey or brandy all day --- "heavily diluted with water or soda." Yes, he stayed in bed as much as possible, for as he told Johnson (who interviewed him at the tender age of 17), the secret of life is "conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down."
As a young politician, Churchill was asked what he stood for. "Opportunism, mostly," he quipped. In fact, he was a liberal, and very progressive. Raised by a nanny, he helped her when her services were no longer needed, sat at her deathbed, kept her grave maintained. In 1910, he was a leader in the fight for old-age pensions. He saw the merits in prison reform: "The treatment of crime and criminals is one of the unfailing tests of the civilization of any country." He helped end the incarceration of children. He wrote 8 million words. He was under fire 50 times. He saw the need to overhaul the Royal Navy. His mother had more affairs than she could count; after he married Clementine, "he never looked at another woman." He painted so well that professionals couldn't believe he was an amateur. He championed the creation of Israel. He drank Pol Roger champagne at meals and smoked a dozen cigars a day. He played polo until he was 53. He loved building walls of brick.
It's a dizzying life. Eloquence, energy, ambition --- this Churchill was a force of nature. It is Johnson's great achievement in these pages that he also establishes Churchill as a colossal failure, who made serious mistakes and paid for them with long years in the wilderness. This only makes even more dramatic his ascendancy; at 65, with German bombers overhead, he finally became prime minister. "I was conscious of a profound sense of relief," he wrote later. "At last I had authority to give directions over the whole scene. I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.... I slept soundly and had no need for cheering dreams. Facts are better than dreams."
The key fact: If Britain lost the war, it would lose its civilization. So the nation simply couldn't lose. The war years are thus the most thrilling years of all, and we see how Churchill was everywhere. Giving great speeches that roused a people under siege. Working 16 hours a day and inspiring others to do the same. And strategizing all the time --- manipulating Roosevelt, preparing for the battle of Germany, forcing Hitler to deal with Greece and postpone his invasion of Russia until the winter, with disastrous results for the Nazis.
The lessons to be learned couldn't be clearer. Churchill was armed with facts, not ideology. He had the right priorities, and in the right order. He repeatedly interrupted his schedule for well-publicized acts of kindness. He was ruthless in pursuit of victory. He held no grudges. He was, in short, a leader on a level we can hardly imagine now --- a protean figure who really did save the world.
If you have an evening reserved for thrills, here they are.
77 of 83 people found the following review helpful.
What it is
By Richard B. Schwartz
Paul Johnson's new book on Churchill is a mini-biography that partakes of the 'character' tradition, so important in the seventeenth century. It covers Churchill's entire life, but in a schematic way. With less than 200 pp. of text there is not much room for detail. For a one-volume life Johnson himself recommends Lord Jenkins' 2001, thousand-page account. Still, Johnson's book is rich in anecdotal detail; it is clear that he could have delivered a much larger book, had he desired to do so. The portrait is highly favorable, as one would expect from Johnson's earlier written comments on Churchill, but it includes a significant number of criticisms. It is admiring, but not fawning.
Most of all it is an enjoyable read, a kind of children's book version of history, but written for adults. For those who have little knowledge of Churchill and the great events with which his life intersected it is a good place to start. It is also a nice 'character' of a political leader. Johnson is not shy in recording his views and this is (as I recently wrote about John Lukacs' LAST RITES) a strength, since we know precisely where Johnson stands and we can agree or disagree with his clearly-articulated point of view.
There is a brief but attractive series of photographs accompanying the text. This is a lovely afternoon read (one that should include whiskey or brandy and soda, fine claret, champagne, tea or some similar beverage of which Sir Winston would approve). It is uplifting without being unrealistic and brings both smiles and tears at various points.
Highly recommended.
53 of 59 people found the following review helpful.
A concise and closely argued brief for the defense of a great man
By Bookreporter
The vast mountain range of literature about Winston Churchill has sprouted another foothill. Paul Johnson's biography, as you might expect from a Briton, is full of unstinting admiration for Churchill the person as well as the political figure. His faults and failures are duly noted but almost always excused, and there are spots where the amount of credit piled upon him strains credulity a bit. But all in all, the story of his adventurous life is told succinctly and colorfully. We get to know Churchill as a human being, not just as a face on the front page of wartime newspapers. For those unwilling to burrow through the huge Churchill literature, this slim volume will provide a good basic account, albeit from the pen of a fervent admirer and fellow countryman.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965), born to wealth and privilege, was an indifferent student at Harrow, but his energy and boundless ambition carried him easily into Parliament at the age of 26 and kept him there through two world wars, the first of which dealt him a humiliating setback, but the second of which he was a major factor in winning.
Churchill's dogged advocacy of the disastrous Dardanelles campaign in World War I very nearly ended his political career. In typical Churchillian fashion, he first accepted the blame and then got up from the floor, dusted himself off, and went back to the job of keeping British world power in tiptop shape. Johnson gives a workmanlike summary of Churchill's lonely interwar campaign to wake his country up to the menace of Nazism, his assumption of power in the war's darkest hour, and his five brilliant years of leadership. All the famous Churchillian quotes are recycled: "Blood, toil, tears and sweat," "This was their finest hour," "Never before have so many owed so much to so few," "Give us the tools and we will finish the job," and a number of others less celebrated but just as effective. When someone remarked that his defeat in the British election of 1945 might actually be a blessing in disguise, Churchill remarked laconically, "It appears to be very effectively disguised."
Johnson correctly singles out Churchill's mastery of words, both written and spoken, as a major love of his life and a crucial factor in making him famous. He also lets us in on his own personal encounters with Churchill. As a boy of 17, he asked the great man for the secret of his success in life. Churchill responded: "Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down." Johnson cannot resist adding, "He then got into his limo."
In Johnson's prose, Churchill's political colleague, David Lloyd George, becomes "LG," and Churchill's wife Clementine is "Clemmie." These touches sometimes give his book the air of a series of close-up snapshots taken by a good friend. Churchill is described as a man who never held grudges, had a ready wit, and found peace of mind in his late-in-life hobby of painting, all of which are certainly true. Although mentioned, his drinking habits, long the subject of worldwide gossip, are never emphasized.
Johnson goes so far in his admiration as to give Churchill some of the credit for the success of the Normandy landing in June 1944 and speculates that Churchill "scented victory" in the war as early as the following August. His long and close relationship with Franklin D. Roosevelt is given very short shrift. He faults Roosevelt for his failure to realize the looming danger from postwar Stalinist Russia, adding that Churchill was actually relieved when Harry Truman succeeded to the Presidency upon Roosevelt's death. He feels that Churchill would not have hesitated a moment to use the atomic bomb against Germany had that been necessary. Johnson's only serious charge against Churchill's World War II leadership is his blindness toward the importance of moving strongly against Japan.
Johnson's answer to the basic question, "Did Churchill save Britain in World War II?" is an unequivocal "Yes." No one can quarrel with that. His book is a concise and closely argued brief for the defense of a great man who surely needs no defense even at a historical distance of 44 years. His five years of wartime leadership were most certainly, in his own memorable words, that nation's "finest hour."
--- Reviewed by Robert Finn
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