Author: Con Coughlin
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250043042
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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"First published in Great Britain by Macmillan"--Title page verso.

Author: Allen Packwood
Publisher: Grub Street Publishers
ISBN: 1473893917
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
An analytical investigation into Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s decision-making process during every stage of World War II. When Winston Churchill accepted the position of Prime Minister in May 1940, he insisted in also becoming Minister of Defence. This, though, meant that he alone would be responsible for the success or failure of Britain’s war effort. It also meant that he would be faced with many monumental challenges and utterly crucial decisions upon which the fate of Britain and the free world rested. With the limited resources available to the UK, Churchill had to pinpoint where his country’s priorities lay. He had to respond to the collapse of France, decide if Britain should adopt a defensive or offensive strategy, choose if Egypt and the war in North Africa should take precedence over Singapore and the UK’s empire in the East, determine how much support to give the Soviet Union, and how much power to give the United States in controlling the direction of the war. In this insightful investigation into Churchill’s conduct during the Second World War, Allen Packwood, BA, MPhil (Cantab), FRHistS, the Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, enables the reader to share the agonies and uncertainties faced by Churchill at each crucial stage of the war. How Churchill responded to each challenge is analyzed in great detail and the conclusions Packwood draws are as uncompromising as those made by Britain’s wartime leader as he negotiated his country through its darkest days.

Author: Simon Read
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0306823810
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Combat, cigars, and whiskeyÑfrom the jungles of Cuba and the mountains of the Northwest Frontier, to the banks of the Nile and the plains of South Africa, comes this action-packed tale of Winston ChurchillÕs adventures as a war correspondent in the Age of Empire.

Author: Graham Clews
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1682472809
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Given the dearth of scholarship on the Phoney War, this book examines the early months of World War II when Winston Churchill’s ability to lead Britain in the fight against the Nazis was being tested. Graham T. Clews explores how Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, proposed to fight this new world war, with particular attention given to his attempts to impel the Royal Navy, the British War Cabinet, and the French, toward a more aggressive prosecution of the conflict. This is no mere retelling of events but a deep analysis of the decision-making process and Churchill’s unique involvement in it. This book shares extensive new insights into well-trodden territory and original analysis of the unexplored, with each chapter offering material which challenges conventional wisdom. Clews reassesses several important issues of the Phoney War period including: Churchill’s involvement in the anti-U-boat campaign; his responsibility for the failures of the Norwegian Campaign; his attitude to Britain’s aerial bombing campaign and the notion of his unfettered “bulldog” spirit; his relationship with Neville Chamberlain; and his succession to the premiership. A man of considerable strengths and many shortcomings, the Churchill that emerges in Clews’ portrayal is dynamic and complicated. Churchill’s Phoney War adds a well-balanced and much-needed history of the Phoney War while scrupulously examining Churchill’s successes and failures.

Author: Mary Churchill
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1639361626
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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A unique and evocative portrait of World War II—and a charming coming-of-age story—from the private diaries of Winston Churchill's youngest daughter, Mary. “I am not a great or important personage, but this will be the diary of an ordinary person's life in war time. Though I may never live to read it again, perhaps it may not prove altogether uninteresting as a record of my life.” In 1939, seventeen-year-old Mary found herself in an extraordinary position at an extraordinary time: it was the outbreak of World War II and her father, Winston Churchill, had been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty; within months he would become prime minister. The young Mary Churchill was uniquely placed to observe this remarkable historical moment, and her diaries—most of which have never been published until now—provide an immediate view of the great events of the war, as well as exchanges and intimate moments with her father. But these diaries also capture what it was like to be a young woman during wartime. An impulsive and spirited writer, full of coming-of-age self-consciousness and joie de vivre, Mary's diaries are untrammeled by self-censorship or nostalgia. From aid raid sirens at 10 Downing Street to seeing action with the women’s branch of the British Army, from cocktail parties with presidents and royals to accompanying her father on key diplomatic trips, Mary's wartime diaries are full of color, rich in historical insight, and a charming and intimate portrait of life alongside Winston Churchill during a key moment of the twentieth century.

Author: Geoffrey Best
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9781852855413
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
A dramatic evaluation of the impact of war on Winston Churchill's leadership abilities draws on the World War II prime minister's writings as a war correspondent, journalist, and historian, exploring how his early military experiences informed his subsequent decisions and helped him protect Europe in later conflicts.

Author: David Irving
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Martin Gilbert
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307369234
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 84

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Book Description
Renowned Churchill historian Sir Martin Gilbert examines Winston Churchill’s War Leadership. Continue to Pester, Nag and Bite is the complete text of the 2004 Barbara Frum Historical Lecture, given at the University of Toronto. This annual lecture “on a subject of contemporary interest in historical perspective” was established in memory of Barbara Frum and will be broadcast on CBC Radio One’s Ideas. “The problem is not winning the war, but persuading people to let you win it.” —Winston Churchill Continue To Pester, Nag And Bite is a brilliant, in-depth look at Winston Churchill’s leadership during the Second World War, written by the world’s top authority on Churchill. By looking behind the public figure and wartime propaganda images, Gilbert reveals a very human, sensitive and often tormented man, who nevertheless found the strength to lead his nation forward from the darkest and most dangerous of times, towards the defeat of a tenacious enemy. Today’s readers will be fascinated to compare Churchill’s tactics and attitudes with those of modern-day leaders. By looking behind the public figure and wartime propaganda images, Gilbert reveals a very human, sensitive, and often tormented man, who nevertheless found the strength to lead his nation forward from the darkest and most dangerous of times, towards the defeat of a tenacious enemy.

Author: David Reynolds
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0307824802
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1014

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Book Description
Winston Churchill was one of the giants of the twentieth century. As Britain’s prime minister from 1940 to 1945, he courageously led his nation and the world away from appeasement, into war, and on to triumph over the Axis dictators. His classic six-volume account of those years, The Second World War, has shaped our perceptions of the conflict and secured Churchill’s place as its most important chronicler. Now, for the first time, a book explains how Churchill wrote this masterwork, and in the process enhances and often revises our understanding of one of history’s most complex, vivid, and eloquent leaders. In Command of History sheds new light on Churchill in his multiple, often overlapping roles as warrior, statesman, politician, and historian. Citing excerpts from the drafts and correspondence for Churchill’s magnum opus, David Reynolds opens our eyes to the myriad forces that shaped its final form. We see how Churchill’ s manuscripts were vetted by Whitehall to conceal secrets such as the breaking of the Enigma code by British spymasters at Bletchley Park, and how Churchill himself edited the volumes to avoid offending postwar statesmen such as Tito, Charles de Gaulle, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. We explore his confusions about the true story of the atomic bomb, learn of his second thoughts about Stalin, and watch him repackage himself as a consistent advocate of the D-Day landings. In Command of History is a major work that forces us to reconsider much received wisdom about World War II. It also peels back the covers from an unjustly neglected period of Churchill’s life, his “second wilderness” years, 1945—1951. During this time Churchill, now over seventy, wrote himself into history, politicked himself back into 10 Downing Street, and delivered some of the most vital oratory of his career, including his pivotal “iron curtain” speech. Exhaustively researched and dazzlingly written, this is a revelatory portrait of one of the world’s most profiled figures, a work by a historian in full command of his craft. “A fascinating account that accomplishes the impossible: [Reynolds] actually finds something new and interesting to say about one of the most chronicled characters of all time.” –The New York Times Book Review A New York Times NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR A BEST HISTORY OF THE YEAR SELECTION –The New York Sun NOTE: This edition does not include photographs.

Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 038534872X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 609

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers an intimate chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz—an inspiring portrait of courage and leadership in a time of unprecedented crisis “One of [Erik Larson’s] best books yet . . . perfectly timed for the moment.”—Time • “A bravura performance by one of America’s greatest storytellers.”—NPR NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • Vogue • NPR • The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • The Globe & Mail • Fortune • Bloomberg • New York Post • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • LibraryReads • PopMatters On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless.” It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill’s “Secret Circle,” to whom he turns in the hardest moments. The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.