Winston's War; Churchill, 1940-1945
New York: Vintage Books [a division of Random House, Inc.], 2011. First Vintage Books Edition [stated]. First Printing [Stated]. Trade Paperback. xi, [5], 555, [1] pages. Illustrations. Front cover and several pages have a crease/ripple. Includes List of Maps, Introduction, Acknowledgments and References, Notes, Select Bibliography, and Index. Chapters cover The Battle of France; The Two Dunkirks; Invasion Fever; The Battle of Britain; Greek Fire; Comrades; The Battle of America; A Glimpse of of Arcadia; "The Valley of Humiliation"; "Second Front Now!''; Camels and the Bear; The Turn of Fortune; Out of the Desert; Sunk in the Aegean; Tehran; Setting Europe Ablaze; Overlord; Bargaining with an Empty Wallet; Athens: "Wounded in the House of Our Friends"; Yalta; The Final Act. Also includes 12 Black and White Maps. Winston's war is a vivid and incisive portrait of Winston Churchill during wartime. Here are the glories and triumphs, the contradictions and blunders, of the man who, through sheer force of will, kept Britain fighting in 1940. But as the tide of the war turned, Hastings shows how Churchill was often disappointed by the failure of the British Army to match his hopes on the battle field, and by the difficulties of sustaining the wartime alliance not only with the Soviet Union, but also with the United States. With surprises on almost every page, Winston's War is a riveting profile of one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century. Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings FRSL FRHistS (born 28 December 1945) is a British journalist and military historian, who has worked as a foreign correspondent for the BBC, editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, and editor of the Evening Standard. He is also the author of numerous books, chiefly on defence matters, which have won several major awards. Hastings was the first journalist to enter Port Stanley during the 1982 Falklands War. After ten years as editor and then editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, he returned to the Evening Standard as editor in 1996 until his retirement in 2002. Hastings was appointed Knight Bachelor in the 2002 Birthday Honours for services to journalism. He has presented historical documentaries for the BBC and is the author of many books, including Bomber Command, which earned the Somerset Maugham Award for non-fiction in 1980. Both Overlord and The Battle for the Falklands won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year prize. He was named Journalist of the Year and Reporter of the Year at the 1982 British Press Awards, and Editor of the Year in 1988. In 2010 he received the Royal United Services Institute's Westminster Medal for his "lifelong contribution to military literature", and the same year the Edgar Wallace Award from the London Press Club. In 2012, he was awarded the US$100,000 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award, a lifetime achievement award for military writing, which includes an honorarium, citation and medallion, sponsored by the Chicago-based Tawani Foundation. Hastings is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and the Royal Historical Society. A vivid and incisive portrait of Winston Churchill during wartime from acclaimed historian Max Hastings, Winston's War captures the full range of Churchill's endlessly fascinating character. At once brilliant and infuriating, self-important and courageous, Hastings's Churchill comes brashly to life as never before. Beginning in 1940, when popular demand elevated Churchill to the role of prime minister, and concluding with the end of the war, Hastings shows us Churchill at his most intrepid and essential, when, by sheer force of will, he kept Britain from collapsing in the face of what looked like certain defeat. Later, we see his significance ebb as the United States enters the war and the Soviets turn the tide on the Eastern Front. But Churchill, Hastings reminds us, knew as well as anyone that the war would be dominated by others, and he managed his relationships with the other Allied leaders strategically, so as to maintain Britain's influence and limit Stalin's gains. At the same time, Churchill faced political peril at home, a situation for which he himself was largely to blame. Hastings shows how Churchill nearly squandered the miraculous escape of the British troops at Dunkirk and failed to address fundamental flaws in the British Army. His tactical inaptitude and departmental meddling won him few friends in the military, and by 1942, many were calling for him to cede operational control. Nevertheless, Churchill managed to exude a public confidence that brought the nation through the bitter war. Hastings rejects the traditional Churchill hagiography while still managing to capture what he calls Churchill's appetite for the fray. Certain to be a classic, Winston's War is a riveting profile of one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century. Condition: Good.
Keywords: Winston Churchill, Battle of France, Dunkirk, Battle of Britain, Special Operations, D-Day, Operation Overlord, Tehran Conference, Yalta Conference, Operation Sealion, Operation Torch, North African Campaign, Operation Torch
ISBN: 9780307388711
[Book #82458]
Price: $25.00