Overview
An acclaimed historian presents a revelatory look at the greatest statesman of the twentieth century
For eminent historian Paul Johnson, Winston Churchill remains an enigma in need of unraveling. Soldier, parliamentarian, Prime Minister, orator, painter, writer, husband, and leader—all of these facets combine to make Churchill one of the most complex and fascinating personalities in history.
In Churchill, Johnson applies a wide lens and an unconventional approach to illuminate the various phases of Churchill’s career. From his adventures as a young cavalry officer in the service of the Empire to his role as an elder statesman prophesying the advent of the Cold War, Johnson shows how Churchill’s immense adaptability combined with his natural pugnacity to make him a formidable leader for the better part of a century. Johnson’s narration of Churchill’s many triumphs and setbacks, rich with anecdote and quotation, illustrates the man’s humor, resilience, courage, and eccentricity as no other biography before.
Winston Churchill’s hold on contemporary readers has never slackened, and Paul Johnson’s lively, concise biography will appeal to historians and general nonfiction readers alike.
Synopsis
In Churchill, critically acclaimed historian Paul Johnson explores the complex and fascinating character of Winston Churchill the soldier, orator, and statesman who shined brightest during Britain's darkest hours. From his forays into the far-flung corners of the empire as cavalry officer and correspondent to his warnings of impending crisis as historian and Parliamentarian, Churchill faced the winds and tides of change with remarkable versatality and tenacity. "A brilliant writer ... in full command of the music of words." Baltimore Sun
The Barnes & Noble Review
Acclaimed historian Paul Johnson (A History of the American People) has written a highly-personal and elegantly concise biography of the man whom Johnson -- among others -- believes saved Britain during the perilous days of World War II.This is an unabashedly admiring life of "the towering figure of the twentieth century," who qualifies in his biographer's words as "the most valuable to humanity, and also the most likeable." Johnson shows us a Churchill who was from the beginning of his career in the army and as a journalist/writer, ambitious, fun-loving, and relentlessly contradictory. In politics, he'd switch parties and become a spellbinding speaker. Johnson recalls listening to Churchill's wartime radio broadcasts with his father: "The combined effect was electrifying and transforming."
Churchill was, in Johnson's view, defined by the kind of resilience he called on from his countrymen in his most famous speech. After he pushed the British military into the disastrous Gallipoli campaign during World War I, Churchill carefully plotted his political comeback while enthusiastically pursuing stress-relieving hobbies like painting and collecting butterflies. He would redeem himself by speaking out against Hitler from 1933 on, and demanding that Britain rearm in preparation for a war he considered inevitable. After Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's attempt to treat with Hitler resulted in cataclysm, the hard-liner Churchill took the reins. Johnson offers ten detailed reasons why Churchill saved Britain from the jaws of wartime defeat, citing his energy, his humor, his hard-won friendship with FDR, his strategic foresight, and, of course, the inspiringpower of his oratory.
Churchill's greatest wartime achievement, Johnson says, may have been his insistence that the Allied forces be fully ready before they launched the D-Day assault: "With the costly failure of Gallipoli always in mind, [Churchill] insisted that D-day should not take place until overwhelming strength was established and there was a near certitude of success." Stalin wanted D-Day to begin in 1942, but Churchill wisely demanded the painstaking preparations that led to Allied victory.
Reverential, yes, but also insightful --a short biography that's worthy of its larger-than-life subject.
--Reviewed by Chuck LeddyEditorials
From Barnes & Noble
Revered British historian and journalist Paul Johnson packs decades of wisdom and research into this 192-page biography of the supremely enigmatic Winston Churchill (1874-1965). In the book, Johnson defends his claim that Churchill's extraordinary adaptability and readiness for controversy enabled him to rebound from political setbacks and confront new challenges. A provocative, illuminating, brilliantly concise life by the acclaimed author of Modern Times. Admiring reviews in hardcover; now in paperback.
Publishers Weekly
In this enthusiastic yet first-rate biography, veteran British historian Johnson (Modern Times) asserts that Winston Churchill (1874–1965) was the 20th century's most valuable figure: “No man did more to preserve freedom and democracy....” An ambitious, world-traveling soldier and bestselling author, Churchill was already famous on entering Parliament in 1899 and within a decade was working with Lloyd George to pass the great reforms of 1908–1911. As First Lord of the Admiralty, he performed brilliantly in preparing the navy for WWI, but blame—undeserved according to Johnson—for the catastrophic 1915 Dardanelles invasion drove him from office. Within two years, he was back at the top, where he remained until the Depression. Johnson delivers an adulatory account of Churchill's prescient denunciations of Hitler and heroics during the early days of WWII, and views later missteps less critically than other historians. He concludes that Churchill was a thoroughly likable great man with many irritating flaws but no nasty ones: he lacked malice, avoided grudges, vendettas and blame shifting, and quickly replaced enmity with friendship. Biographers in love with their subjects usually produce mediocre history, but Johnson, always self-assured as well as scholarly, has written another highly opinionated, entertaining work. B&w photos. (Nov.)New York Times Book Review
It turns out that while Wikipedia can ably trace the arc of Churchill's life, Johnson -- who enhances the familiar story with generous quotations from his subject as well as his own digressive and thoroughly English prose -- can give the reader the definite sense of having known Churchill, or at least of having hung out with him for a bit. . . . Churchill lets you spend some time in this man's company, and who wouldn't want that?The Wall Street Journal
Mr. Johnson has just written what, at 192 pages, is probably the shortest biography of Winston Churchill ever published.It came about, he says, because the head of Viking Penguin approached him "saying that young people are very interested in Winston Churchill but we find they are most reluctant to read long books. . . . She said do you think you could do a short biography, and I said 'it's a cinch!'"
. . .
One of the things I hope this little book will do is persuade people to read Churchill's own books. 'My Early Life' is one of the best volumes of autobiography ever written-it's an enchanting book, full of fun and humor."
Mr. Johnson's own journalistic career meant that he spent considerable time with other 20th-century leaders, ranging from Charles de Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer and Ronald Reagan to "that windbag" Fidel Castro, giving his Churchill portrait added depth.
Mr. Johnson met Churchill himself in October 1946 when he was a boy about to go up to Oxford. "He gave me one of his giant matches he used for lighting cigars. I was emboldened by that into saying, 'Mr. Winston Churchill, sir, to what do you attribute your success in life?' and he said without hesitating: 'Economy of effort. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.' And he then got into his limo.
—Jonathan Foreman
Kirkus Reviews
A slender volume on that most unslender of subjects, Winston Churchill. Memoirist, historian, journalist, soldier, traveler and leader, Churchill committed millions of words to print and generated millions more by other hands. Indeed, writes prolific historian Johnson (Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle, 2007, etc.), "I calculate his total of words in print, including published speeches, to be between 8 and 10 million words." So slim a treatment of the portly prose master would seem unusual, but Johnson seemingly has a purpose in mind-to use Churchill's life as a kind of self-improvement scheme for the rest of us, who have not the opportunity to go steaming off to Gallipoli or escape from the Boers. The author measures Churchill's successes on a broad beam-whence his observation that while Churchill drank like a sailor on shore leave for most of his life, "his liver, inspected after his death, was found to be as perfect as a young child's." Johnson approvingly notes Churchill's habit of casting about widely for learned opinion but keeping his own counsel, making difficult decisions and accepting responsibility for failures as well as successes. Johnson presents a fully rounded character who used the F-word from time to time, though never to Nixonian excess, who learned as he went and who managed to retain principle while acting as a practical politician. The author closes with a list of ten big lessons that Churchill can teach, some very specific (use airpower whenever possible) and some more applicable to ordinary lives (work hard, forge alliances, get your priorities straight). Personal reflections meet large-scale history, most satisfyingly.Library Journal
Journalist/historian Johnson's biography of Winston Churchill, rife with anecdotes and quotations reflecting the statesman's quirky personality, dry wit, and great intelligence, both entertains and irritates. Narrator Simon Prebble (www.simonprebble.com) does his best with the material, which reads much like fiction. Unfortunately, the author makes sweeping generalizations to bolster his belief that Churchill was a superior man in every conceivable way (e.g., he had the most political presence, the best sense of humor). These vast generalizations grow wearying after the first ten minutes. Perhaps if Johnson had been a bit less effusive, his biography would been more authoritative. An enjoyable but flawed work recommended where there is interest. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 7/09.—Ed.]—B. Allison Gray, Santa Barbara P.L. Syst., CAThe Barnes & Noble Review
Acclaimed historian Paul Johnson (A History of the American People) has written a highly-personal and elegantly concise biography of the man whom Johnson -- among others -- believes saved Britain during the perilous days of World War II.This is an unabashedly admiring life of "the towering figure of the twentieth century," who qualifies in his biographer's words as "the most valuable to humanity, and also the most likeable." Johnson shows us a Churchill who was from the beginning of his career in the army and as a journalist/writer, ambitious, fun-loving, and relentlessly contradictory. In politics, he'd switch parties and become a spellbinding speaker. Johnson recalls listening to Churchill's wartime radio broadcasts with his father: "The combined effect was electrifying and transforming."
Churchill was, in Johnson's view, defined by the kind of resilience he called on from his countrymen in his most famous speech. After he pushed the British military into the disastrous Gallipoli campaign during World War I, Churchill carefully plotted his political comeback while enthusiastically pursuing stress-relieving hobbies like painting and collecting butterflies. He would redeem himself by speaking out against Hitler from 1933 on, and demanding that Britain rearm in preparation for a war he considered inevitable. After Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's attempt to treat with Hitler resulted in cataclysm, the hard-liner Churchill took the reins. Johnson offers ten detailed reasons why Churchill saved Britain from the jaws of wartime defeat, citing his energy, his humor, his hard-won friendship with FDR, his strategic foresight, and, of course, the inspiringpower of his oratory.
Churchill's greatest wartime achievement, Johnson says, may have been his insistence that the Allied forces be fully ready before they launched the D-Day assault: "With the costly failure of Gallipoli always in mind, [Churchill] insisted that D-day should not take place until overwhelming strength was established and there was a near certitude of success." Stalin wanted D-Day to begin in 1942, but Churchill wisely demanded the painstaking preparations that led to Allied victory.
Reverential, yes, but also insightful --a short biography that's worthy of its larger-than-life subject.
--Reviewed by Chuck Leddy