This book should be read (before, after or with) The End of the World as We Know It. The scenarios are almost interchangable.

This book should be read (before, after or with) The End of the World as We Know It. The scenarios are almost interchangable.

Manchester's prose more than compensates for the book's intimidating girth. His style is rich enough to do justice to a rhetorician like Churchill. It is a nice case of style dovetailing with substance.

The book opens where the second one closes - with the advent of Churchill's tenure as PM. This promise of things to come was enough to get me through the enlightening but drawn out chapters on Churchill's lineage and upbringing. This section, like most biographies, treats the subject as a precursor to the historical figure we all know (and love or hate enough to read about) rather than treating the youth Churchill in his own right before drawing connections to the statesman. Once Churchill joins the armed forces the pace quickens until the end of the book - by which point I was exhausted by all Churchill accomplished during these years.

Manchester's prose more than compensates for the book's intimidating girth. His style is rich enough to do justice to a rhetorician like Churchill. It is a nice case of style dovetailing with substance.

The book opens where the second one closes - with the advent of Churchill's tenure as PM. This promise of things to come was enough to get me through the enlightening but drawn out chapters on Churchill's lineage and upbringing. This section, like most biographies, treats the subject as a precursor to the historical figure we all know (and love or hate enough to read about) rather than treating the youth Churchill in his own right before drawing connections to the statesman. Once Churchill joins the armed forces the pace quickens until the end of the book - by which point I was exhausted by all Churchill accomplished during these years.

Actually it is very sad to mention this blunder against humanity:

When the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in October and November 1914, Britain's communications with India and the East via the Suez canal was immediately placed in jeopardy.
There was a secret agreement with Germany signed in August 1914 by the Young Turks that was troubling the Russians and taken as warning of the forthcoming trouble to The Tsar. The Russians regarded their Caucasian terrirories were also placed in jeopardy.
Consequently, the British and French, in order to protect their future `colonies' and bisect the `sick man of Europe', had to act forcefully. They opened another front in the South with the Gallipoli (1915) and Mesopotamian campaigns.

Anxious to score his first military encounter with `the enemy', Winston Churchill, in his capacity as Lord of Navy, prematurely urged a combined French and British naval incursion into Gallipoli. But the Turks were successful in repelling the British, French, and Australia and New Zealand Army Corps. and pushed their eventual withdrawal and evacuation.

((By contrast, in Mesopotamia - Iraq- after the disastrous Siege of Kut (1915-16), British Empire forces - mainly of Indian troops - reorganized and captured Baghdad (March 1917). Further to the west in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, initial British failures were overcome when Jerusalem was captured in December 1917, and the Egyptian Expeditionary Force under Field Marshal Edmund Allenby, broke the Ottoman forces at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918))

Russia, the protector of the Greek Orthothox Armenian population, sent her best troops in the Caucasus. The Turkish, Vice-Generalissimo Enver Pasha, supreme commander of the ex Ottoman Empire armed forces, was a very ambitious man. His aim and everpresent dream was to conquer central Asia. Enver Pasha, like Winston Churchill, was not a practical soldier. He launched an offensive with 100,000 soldiers against the Russians in the Caucasus in December of 1914.
His main enemy was the severe Weather conditions.
Insisting on a frontal attack against Russian positions in the mountains , Enver lost over 80% of his troops at the Battle of Sarikamis, in the heart of the tough winter season.

In 1917, Russian Grand Duke Nicholas assumed senior control over the Caucasus front. Nicholas tried to have a railway built from Russia (Georgia) to the conquered territories with a view to bringing up more supplies for a new offensive. But, in March of 1917 (February in the pre-revolutionary Russian calendar), the Czar was overthrown in the February Revolution and the Russian army began to slowly fall apart.
Hence, the protector of the Armenians was gone.

Winston Churchill blunder in Gallipoli, opened patched over wounds and re-ignited animosities between the Turks and their Armenian neighbors. In 1915, the Armenians were the victims of his cowardice. The Turks committed a HOLOCAUST against the Armenians that immediately started after WC debacle in Gallipolis.
The mass murder of the Armenians was indeed the first Holocaust of the twentieth century.

Actually it is very sad to mention this blunder against humanity:

When the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in October and November 1914, Britain's communications with India and the East via the Suez canal was immediately placed in jeopardy.
There was a secret agreement with Germany signed in August 1914 by the Young Turks that was troubling the Russians and taken as warning of the forthcoming trouble to The Tsar. The Russians regarded their Caucasian terrirories were also placed in jeopardy.
Consequently, the British and French, in order to protect their future `colonies' and bisect the `sick man of Europe', had to act forcefully. They opened another front in the South with the Gallipoli (1915) and Mesopotamian campaigns.

Anxious to score his first military encounter with `the enemy', Winston Churchill, in his capacity as Lord of Navy, prematurely urged a combined French and British naval incursion into Gallipoli. But the Turks were successful in repelling the British, French, and Australia and New Zealand Army Corps. and pushed their eventual withdrawal and evacuation.

((By contrast, in Mesopotamia - Iraq- after the disastrous Siege of Kut (1915-16), British Empire forces - mainly of Indian troops - reorganized and captured Baghdad (March 1917). Further to the west in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, initial British failures were overcome when Jerusalem was captured in December 1917, and the Egyptian Expeditionary Force under Field Marshal Edmund Allenby, broke the Ottoman forces at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918))

Russia, the protector of the Greek Orthothox Armenian population, sent her best troops in the Caucasus. The Turkish, Vice-Generalissimo Enver Pasha, supreme commander of the ex Ottoman Empire armed forces, was a very ambitious man. His aim and everpresent dream was to conquer central Asia. Enver Pasha, like Winston Churchill, was not a practical soldier. He launched an offensive with 100,000 soldiers against the Russians in the Caucasus in December of 1914.
His main enemy was the severe Weather conditions.
Insisting on a frontal attack against Russian positions in the mountains , Enver lost over 80% of his troops at the Battle of Sarikamis, in the heart of the tough winter season.

In 1917, Russian Grand Duke Nicholas assumed senior control over the Caucasus front. Nicholas tried to have a railway built from Russia (Georgia) to the conquered territories with a view to bringing up more supplies for a new offensive. But, in March of 1917 (February in the pre-revolutionary Russian calendar), the Czar was overthrown in the February Revolution and the Russian army began to slowly fall apart.
Hence, the protector of the Armenians was gone.

Winston Churchill blunder in Gallipoli, opened patched over wounds and re-ignited animosities between the Turks and their Armenian neighbors. In 1915, the Armenians were the victims of his cowardice. The Turks committed a HOLOCAUST against the Armenians that immediately started after WC debacle in Gallipolis.
The mass murder of the Armenians was indeed the first Holocaust of the twentieth century.

This is a brilliantly written biography of one of the most fascinating characters in history. Like most of Mnchester's work (I must admit to being a big fan), this is a very readable biography, well researched and holds the reader's interest from page to page. We see so much of Churchhill in his role as a WWII leader that we tend to forget there was a young man, living, learning and growing before the back and white films we see today. It is good to be reminded of this from time to time. It is also, for those interested, to learn how a world leader of Churchill's calibre came into being, how he developed and why he was the way he was. This work gives us great insight to those questions. Cannot recommend this work highly enough.

This is a brilliantly written biography of one of the most fascinating characters in history. Like most of Mnchester's work (I must admit to being a big fan), this is a very readable biography, well researched and holds the reader's interest from page to page. We see so much of Churchhill in his role as a WWII leader that we tend to forget there was a young man, living, learning and growing before the back and white films we see today. It is good to be reminded of this from time to time. It is also, for those interested, to learn how a world leader of Churchill's calibre came into being, how he developed and why he was the way he was. This work gives us great insight to those questions. Cannot recommend this work highly enough.

This is a two volume work that provides an outstanding portrait of a great man. Mr. Manchester shows him in all of his roles but most importantly he allows the reader to see that Sir Winston was a nineteenth century aristocrat trapped in the twentieth century. Volume One brings Sir Winston to life but Volume Two offers a view of his years in political exile where he became a voice in the wilderness. This biography brilliantly displays the astonishing scope of Sir Winston's strategic and geopolitical insight. It also shows how in many cases - and to the detriment of mankind - he was his own worst enemy.

From a personal perspective I found the details surrounding the actions of Neville Chamberlain to be the most informative because his naivetý has always been astonishing to me. Mr. Manchester puts the whole attitude of appeasement into perspective but unfortunately he seems to portray the appeasers as weak, ignorant men, who placed their personal agendas ahead of the country. While some of this assessment may be correct I think Mr. Manchester fails to show the appeasers as men of their time who had been so appalled by the carnage of WW I that they were willing to do anything to avoid another war.

Volume One clearly shows Sir Winston not only as a man of action but it shows him for what he was underneath - an aristocrat. He shamelessly used his connections to further his own ends and it was these connections that allowed him to flaunt military orders. He did things that another officer would have been court-martialed for. At the core Sir Winston was an aristocrat who treated non-aristocrats with indifference. I felt Volume One showed Sir Winston's flaws as a man but it also showed his development not only as a politician but as one of the most strategic thinkers of the twentieth century. This volume also gives you the foundation for the opposition that he encountered throughout his career. He was so ahead of his contemporaries that they never seemed to grasp what he was saying and he was unable to convey his thinking without coming across as a power seeker. This was the price for his earlier self-promotion.

With the advantage of hindsight, Volume Two shows in painful detail the step by step climb to power by a raving madman - Adolf Hitler. It shows how the European powers had multiple opportunities to stop this and to avoid WW II but they could not bring themselves to take the aggressive steps necessary. The "peace at any price" was the prevailing attitude and the failure by the politicians to act raised the price of peace day by day and year by year until WW II was inevitable. Perhaps the greatest message in this volume goes unsaid and that is that the anti-war and total disarmament crowd always seem to not prevent war but to make the on-coming war more disastrous and more inevitable. Perhaps the ultimate message here is that the absence of war is not peace. In any event these were two very good books. Sir Winston's "World War II" and William Shirrer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" are also well worth reading.

This is a two volume work that provides an outstanding portrait of a great man. Mr. Manchester shows him in all of his roles but most importantly he allows the reader to see that Sir Winston was a nineteenth century aristocrat trapped in the twentieth century. Volume One brings Sir Winston to life but Volume Two offers a view of his years in political exile where he became a voice in the wilderness. This biography brilliantly displays the astonishing scope of Sir Winston's strategic and geopolitical insight. It also shows how in many cases - and to the detriment of mankind - he was his own worst enemy.

From a personal perspective I found the details surrounding the actions of Neville Chamberlain to be the most informative because his naivetý has always been astonishing to me. Mr. Manchester puts the whole attitude of appeasement into perspective but unfortunately he seems to portray the appeasers as weak, ignorant men, who placed their personal agendas ahead of the country. While some of this assessment may be correct I think Mr. Manchester fails to show the appeasers as men of their time who had been so appalled by the carnage of WW I that they were willing to do anything to avoid another war.

Volume One clearly shows Sir Winston not only as a man of action but it shows him for what he was underneath - an aristocrat. He shamelessly used his connections to further his own ends and it was these connections that allowed him to flaunt military orders. He did things that another officer would have been court-martialed for. At the core Sir Winston was an aristocrat who treated non-aristocrats with indifference. I felt Volume One showed Sir Winston's flaws as a man but it also showed his development not only as a politician but as one of the most strategic thinkers of the twentieth century. This volume also gives you the foundation for the opposition that he encountered throughout his career. He was so ahead of his contemporaries that they never seemed to grasp what he was saying and he was unable to convey his thinking without coming across as a power seeker. This was the price for his earlier self-promotion.

With the advantage of hindsight, Volume Two shows in painful detail the step by step climb to power by a raving madman - Adolf Hitler. It shows how the European powers had multiple opportunities to stop this and to avoid WW II but they could not bring themselves to take the aggressive steps necessary. The "peace at any price" was the prevailing attitude and the failure by the politicians to act raised the price of peace day by day and year by year until WW II was inevitable. Perhaps the greatest message in this volume goes unsaid and that is that the anti-war and total disarmament crowd always seem to not prevent war but to make the on-coming war more disastrous and more inevitable. Perhaps the ultimate message here is that the absence of war is not peace. In any event these were two very good books. Sir Winston's "World War II" and William Shirrer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" are also well worth reading.