1152 pages,
Viking, ISBN-13: 978-1101980996
By
some accounts, Churchill: Walking with
Destiny is the 1,010th book written about Winston Leonard
Spencer-Churchill (and one may be forgiven for wondering what more could be
said that has not already been said), but Andrew Roberts utilizes new sources
of information not previously available when other works on Churchill’s life were
written (for example, Roberts was provided exclusive access to transcripts of
the War Cabinet and the diary of King George VI, who carefully recorded all of his
meetings with the Prime Minister during the Second World War). Roberts also had
access to a massive trove of correspondence and diaries from Churchill’s
friends, family and enemies. All of this primary source material provides ample
justification for yet another volume to be written about Churchill.
He
lived an epic life of heroism, statesmanship, scholarship and artistic
accomplishment. His father was the cold and aloof Randolph Churchill while his
mother was the fetching beauty Jenny Jerome Churchill. Winston was scorned by
his parents and was considered by them to be a failure, but for all that he
graduated from The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and served with distinction
in India and South Africa, where his daring escape from the Boers made him a
household name. In a long career in Parliament he served in many posts, such as
Home Secretary, Secretary for the Colonies and Lord of the Admiralty. He was
blamed for the Gallipoli disaster of World War I and served for six months as
an officer in the trenches of France; only with the coming of Fascism did
Churchill emerge from the political wilderness to lead his country to victory,
by “blood, toil, tears and sweat”. Churchill drafted the English language and
put words to war as his brilliant oratory will live forever in the minds and
hearts of freedom loving people. Postwar he served as Prime Minister and wrote
his war memoirs.
Thrilling
and illuminating are the only words for Walking
with Destiny; the prose is like a torrent of clear fresh water clearing
away mysteries and old misconceptions, and no doubt Churchill himself would
approve of Roberts’ grasp of the English language. Churchill was, of course, a
great statesman, but as Roberts points out time and again he was also a wise
political thinker and a great author, one of the greatest of all time in the
English language. Churchill is needed today when so many are deceived by the
Siren call of the State, Marxist influenced Multiculturalism and Socialism in
general. But this is no paean to a marble man, for Roberts also captures Churchill
the man; his egotism, his wit, his loyalty to friends, his penchant sometimes
for “selfishness, insensitivity, and ruthlessness”; and his “sybaritic” love of
good drink and cigars. This biography is exhaustively researched, beautifully
written and paced, deeply admiring but not hagiographic, and empathic and
balanced in its judgments. No one in the 20th Century compares to
Sir Winston Churchill whose greatness is like granite…it endures.
No comments:
Post a Comment