Saturday 25 April 2020

BOOK REVIEW - Milestones to Disaster




The five volumes of Churchill's memoirs of the Second World War have been sitting on my bookshelf staring at me for some years now. I thought that lockdown was a good opportunity to read them.

I have read books about Churchill, but this is the first book by him that I have read. Despite its rather daunting size and subject matter, I found this to be a very readable book. No wonder Churchill was such a successful journalist. His writing style is lucid, light and gripping. It keeps you bounding along from one anecdote to the next, one memorable quote to the next and one pen portrait of a person to the next. Gripping stuff.

As well as being a good read, this book takes a very personal view of the build up to war. It really is about Churchill's actions, words and views as the world slides towards conflict. He highlights issues and events that were important to him at the time, not necessarily those that later historians think were important in hindsight. A unique persepctive. It must be said that I did not realise the way that Churchill, as an ex-cabinet minister and scion of an aristocratic family, had such wide ranging access to government staff and papers. It puts a different gloss on his warnings of German aims and rearmaments. Of course, Churchill comes out of all this very well - but I suppose he would as he wrote the book. On the other hand he does admit his errors when he makes them.

Despite having gone over this ground many times, I learned new things. I did not appreciate, for instance, that Stalin had tried to come to terms with the UK and France against Germany before chucking in his hand with Hitler in 1939. I did not realise the vacillations of Mussolini's policy changes, and had no idea that there were reasons other than evil fascist empire-building for his invasion of Abyssinia.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the period, in Churchill or in history in general.

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