Masterful research, impeccable detail, with a beautifully flowing narrative of which Churchill himself would have been proud.' - Professor Peter Caddick-Adams From his earliest days Winston Churchill was an extreme risk taker and he carried this into adulthood. Today he is widely hailed as Britain's greatest wartime leader and politician. Deep down though, he was foremost a warlord. Just like his ally Stalin, and his arch enemies Hitler and Mussolini, Churchill could not help himself and insisted on personally directing the strategic conduct of World War II. For better or worse he insisted on being political master and military commander. Again like his wartime contemporaries, he had a habit of not heeding the advice of his generals. The results of this were disasters in Norway, North Africa, Greece and Crete during 1940–41. His fruitless Dodecanese campaign in 1943 also ended in defeat. Churchill's pig-headedness over supporting the Italian campaign in defiance of the Riviera landings culminated in him threatening to resign and bring down the British Government. Yet on occasions he got it just right: his refusal to surrender in 1940, the British miracle at Dunkirk and victory in the Battle of Britain, showed that he was a much-needed decisive leader. Nor did he shy away from difficult decisions, such as the destruction of the French Fleet to prevent it falling into German hands and his subsequent war against Vichy France. In this fascinating new book, acclaimed historian Anthony Tucker-Jones explores the record of Winston Churchill as a military commander, assessing how the military experiences of his formative years shaped him for the difficult military decisions he took in office. This book assesses his choices in the some of the most controversial and high-profile campaigns of World War II, and how in high office his decision making was both right and wrong.
“McCarten's pulse-pounding narrative transports the reader to those springtime weeks in 1940 when the fate of the world rested on the shoulders of Winston Churchill. A true story thrillingly told. Thoroughly researched and compulsively readable.”—Michael F. Bishop, Executive Director of the International Churchill Society From the acclaimed novelist and screenwriter of The Theory of Everything comes a revelatory look at the period immediately following Winston Churchill’s ascendancy to Prime Minister “He was speaking to the nation, the world, and indeed to history....” May, 1940. Britain is at war. The horrors of blitzkrieg have seen one western European democracy after another fall in rapid succession to Nazi boot and shell. Invasion seems mere hours away. Just days after becoming Prime Minister, Winston Churchill must deal with this horror—as well as a skeptical King, a party plotting against him, and an unprepared public. Pen in hand and typist-secretary at the ready, how could he change the mood and shore up the will of a nervous people? In this gripping day-by-day, often hour-by-hour account of how an often uncertain Churchill turned Britain around, the celebrated Bafta-winning writer Anthony McCarten exposes sides of the great man never seen before. He reveals how he practiced and re-wrote his key speeches, from ‘Blood, toil, tears and sweat’ to ‘We shall fight on the beaches’; his consideration of a peace treaty with Nazi Germany, and his underappreciated role in the Dunkirk evacuation; and, above all, how 25 days helped make one man an icon. Using new archive material, McCarten reveals the crucial behind-the-scenes moments that changed the course of history. It’s a scarier—and more human—story than has ever been told.
A British officer’s day-to-day observations throw “interesting light on life and soldiering during the Second World War.” —The NYMAS Review Anthony Barne started his diary in August 1939 as a young, recently married captain in the Royal Dragoons stationed in Palestine. He wrote an entry for every day of the war, often with great difficulty, sometimes when dog-tired or under fire, sometimes when things looked dark and desperate, but more often in sunshine and optimism—“surrounded by good fellows who kept one cheerful and helped one through the sad and difficult times.” His diary ends in July 1945, by which time he was commanding officer of the 4th Hussars, having recently visited Downing Street for lunch alone with the Churchills. The diaries have an enormous scope, covering time in Palestine and Egypt before he joins the Eighth Army, describing the retreat back to El Alamein, the battle and its aftermath. He ends the campaign commanding his regiment. He often graphically details the physical realities of war: the appalling conditions in the desert, the bombardments of the regiment from the air, the deaths and serious injuries of fellow soldiers. In 1943, he flies down to Rhodesia to see his wife and infant son before returning to Cairo to join Churchill’s regiment, the 4th Hussars. Arriving in Italy in 1944, he recounts the campaign as the Allies push north. With a tone that varies wildly—often witty, sometimes outrageous, but also poignant and philosophical—this is not just a memoir of war but a portrait of another time that showcases the author’s warmth and keen eye for the absurd.
From the prize-winning screenwriter of The Theory of Everything, this is a cinematic, behind-the-scenes account of a crucial moment which takes us inside the mind of one of the world's greatest leaders - and provides a revisionist, more rounded portrait of his leadership. May, 1940. Britain is at war, European democracies are falling rapidly and the public are unaware of this dangerous new world. Just days after his unlikely succession to Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, faces this horror - and a sceptical King and a party plotting against him. He wonders how he can capture the public mood and does so, magnificently, before leading the country to victory. It is this fascinating period that Anthony McCarten captures in this deeply researched, gripping day-by-day (and often hour-by-hour) narrative. In doing so he revises the familiar view of Churchill - he made himself into the iconic figure we remember and changed the course of history, but through those turbulent and dangerous weeks he was plagued by doubt, and even explored a peace treaty with Nazi Germany. It's a scarier, and more human story, than has ever been told.
In Churchill Cold War Warrior, renowned military historian Anthony Tucker-Jones reassesses Winston Churchill’s neglected postwar career. He explains how in an unguarded moment Winston inadvertently sowed the seeds for the Cold War by granting Stalin control of Eastern Europe. Famously Churchill, at Fulton, then warned of the growing danger created by this partition of the continent. Winston after the Second World War wanted to prove a point. Shunned by the electorate in 1945, instead of retiring he was determined to be Prime Minister for a second time. Biding his time he watched in dismay as Britain scuttled from India and Palestine and weathered the East-West confrontation over Berlin. He finally got his way in 1951 and took the reins of a country with drastically waning powers. Churchill was confronted by a world in turmoil, with an escalating Cold War that had gone hot in Korea and an unraveling British Empire. Communism and nationalism proved a heady cocktail that fanned the flames of widespread conflict. He had to contain rebellions in Kenya and Malaya while clinging on in Egypt. Desperately he also sought to avoid a Third World War and the use of nuclear weapons by reuniting the 'Big Three'.
Anthony Montague Browne was a young diplomat in Paris when in 1952 he was seconded to become Private Secretary to Winston Churchill, who in 1951 had returned to 10 Downing Street for his second term as Prime Minister." "Apart from a brief return to the Foreign Office after the Prime Minister's retirement in 1955, he remained with Churchill - as adviser, amanuensis and assistant - until Churchill's death in January 1965. He served as companion on the official foreign visits and the holidays with Max Beaverbrook and Aristotle Onassis, helped with the great literary works, and became his closest intimate as well as speech-writer and spokesman in Churchill's last decade." "Long Sunset describes a rich and varied career. As a young man Anthony Montague Browne fought in the Second World War as a pilot with distinction and was awarded the DFC, and after 1965 he served in the Royal Household." "But it is the figure of Winston Churchill which dominates these memoirs (to which his daughter Mary Soames contributes a Foreword) and as the final member of what he called 'my circle' to have written an autobiography, Anthony Montague Browne represents a last link with the greatest Englishman of the century."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
While the campaign in Norway from April to June 1940 was a depressing opening to active hostilities between Britain and Nazi Germany, it led directly to Churchill's war leadership and The Coalition. Both were to prove decisive in the long term.??This well researched work opens with a summary of the issues and personalities in British politics in the 1930s. The consequences of appeasement and failure to re-arm quickly became apparent in April 1940. The Royal Navy, which had been the defence priority, found itself seriously threatened by the Luftwaffe's control of the skies. The economies inflicted on the Army were all too obvious when faced by the Wehrmacht. Losses of men and equipment were serious and salutary.??As the Author describes, the campaign itself was fought in three phases: the landings in support of the Norwegians, the evacuation from Central Norway which led to Chamberlain's resignation and, finally, the campaign in the North which remained credible until the fall of France. At the same time he covers the political background and activity in London and cabinet in-fighting.??The Norway Campaign and the Rise of Churchill 1940, with its informed mix of politics and war fighting, provides a well informed and balanced overview of the opening campaign of the Second World War and its immediate and wider consequences.??As featured in the Dover Express, Folkestone Herald and Essence Magazine.
Winston Churchill was seventy-six when the Conservative Party won the 1951 General Election. At the third attempt since the end of the Second World War he had finally been returned to power by the will of the people. A lifetime's ambition had been achieved after nearly half a century in Parliament. In Anthony Seldon's own words, 'the most controversial element in the book is likely to prove the reassessment of Churchill's contribution as a peacetime premier. The title Churchill's Indian Summer is not intended to be sensational, but it is meant to be combative. I do not suggest he was as fit or as brilliant as he had been during the war. He clearly was not. The characteristic of an Indian Summer is that the temperature is cooler than at the height of the season: indeed, a feature one would expect of a man a month off his seventy-sixth birthday on his return to Number Ten. Yet despite his failing powers, he was, I believe, right to remain in office, at least until his major stroke in the summer of 1953, and a good case can be made for his retention of power until the autumn of 1954. Only in his last six months in office was he not fully up to the task.'The book though is not just about Churchill. In an approach more thematic than chronological Anthony Seldon also gives a detailed analysis of each major Government department, its ministers and especially the civil servants who in many cases not merely implemented policies but determined them too. On the whole, it was an emollient administration somewhat to the left of both the Conservative and Labour Parties of today. Nor was it unsuccessful be it on the home front or in foreign policy. Anthony Seldon's book, first published in 1981, was the first to cover this still slightly forgotten Government. ‘Mr Seldon has used an historical method which provides flesh and blood: he has talked to some 200 surviving politicians and civil servants and it is remarkable how little their views and recollections diverge. . . It is a gigantic exercise in oral history, and it is a triumph.’ John Colville, Sunday Telegraph ‘Here is a massive, excellently researched and very readable account of Winston Churchill’s only Prime Ministership in peacetime, from 1951 to 1955. . . There is plenty of shrewd analysis, particularly of character and much balanced and generally charitable personalisation. A valuable book, in fact, and a first-class account of those four years in which Britain was still thought of as ‘’Great’. One is left with a sense of abiding gratitude to the author as well as his subject.’ Terence Prittie ‘So much has been made of Churchill’s infirmities in these years that too little attention has been given to his final, and extraordinary achievement, and it is the outstanding achievement of Mr Seldon that, although no slavish adulator, he recognizes that little of this would have been possible without that spirit of humanity and warmth and faith which radiated from the Prime Minister. . . . There are few histories of a single Government so competent and reasoned as this.’ Robert Rhodes James
This title collects the essays of one of England's best-known and most distinguished psychiatrists. Storr weighs and tests Freud's theory that creativity is the result of dissatisfaction by examining the impulses which drove Kafka, Newton and Churchill.
Two eminent scholars of historiography examine the concept of national identity through the key multi-volume histories of the last two hundred years. Starting with Hume’s History of England (1754–62), they explore the work of British historians whose work had a popular readership and an influence on succeeding generations of British children.
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