Churchill: A Biography

Rating:
Summary: Probably the Finest Biography of Churchill
Review: I don't know how it stacks up against Martin Gilbert's one-volume work, but I'm always a little suspicious of officially sanctioned biographies. Jenkins certainly plays no such role here.

This book is superb - one of the best biographies ever written. At least one of the best I've ever read, and I've read many biographies of many different people. Jenkins is fair and his judgment is balanced and impartial. There is also the added advantage here of being somewhat distant in time from the subject, thus more objective - but not so distant as to lose track of original sources of people and papers.

First of all, I'm no fan of Churchill's; never have been one. But this book does make one feel the presence of a "great man". It doesn't gloss over the faults and flaws either. For example, Churchill often could not help being under the spell of Stalin's charisma, even though he kept castigating Roosevelt (a true hero many times greater than Churchill) for doing exactly that. (Even a dunce like Eden saw this.)

I like the bit about Churchill's own hagiography of John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough. One cannot help wondering how Winston felt about comparing himself to this great ancestor of his. To my knowledge, Jenkins has nothing to say about a comparison by Winston himself. John Churchill played much the same premier role in British politics and European balance of power as Winston did. Both were men of war and of diplomacy. One rose from humble origins to a dukedom; the other came from comfortable surroundings, but was a misfit all the way from school to parliament, and ended up with only a knighthood. (According to Jenkins, Queen Elizabeth was, it turned out - and contrary to my expectations - reluctant to offer him another dukedom! No wonder some people call her mean.) While Marlborough's triumph on the battlefied - he was a great field commander as well, unlike Winston - enhanced his prodigious gift of diplomacy to propel Britain onto Europe's stage as a Great Power (for the first time, the equal of France, the other Great Power), Winston's equal achievement ensured Britain's survival but failed to preserve his beloved Empire. In fact, under Winston Churchill Britain ceased to be the superpower it had been when he was born, relegated now to the second rate. Of course, no one could have prevented this (unless it was Hitler). He kept Britain ALIVE, and that's the best he or anyone could do. I think Winston is more important in world history terms than John, but Winston himself would not have missed the profound irony, given his strong sense of history and historical parallels.

Love him or hate him, unless you're completely indifferent, this is a great book about a "great man". (I was rather indifferent to Churchill before, but now less so.) I salute Jenkins, and recommend this book to all.

Rating:
Summary: ONE OF THE BEST ONE- VOLUME BIOGRAPHIES OF SIR W.C.
Review: This book by Roy Jenkins, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, of the Oxford University, member of the House of the Lords and President of the Royal Society of literature is THE BIOGRAPHY of Winston Churchill. Very well written, outstanding in the breadth of material researched and deliciously witty, this one of the best single volume approach to the life of one of the human milestones of the 20th Century.
Unless you have the time and purpose to go through the 8 volumes of the official biography started by Randolph Churchill but really attributable to Sir Martin Gilbert (ed. from 1966 to 1988), you will not be able to get a better factual assessment of the life and deeds of THE PRIME MINISTER par excellence. It covers every important aspect of Churchill's life, and then some. From birth to schooling, his first exposures to war and politics, then early triumphs, despair, resurrection and demise, we get a clear picture of one of the principal players in English politics for almost 60 years.
The book has a very well organized index, for reference purposes. For instance, under Churchill, Sir Winston Spencer, we have subtitles that address topics such as Characteristics and qualities (memory, self-confidence, personal bravery, argumentativeness, etc.) Education, Health, Honors, Military Career, etc. that much facilitate a cross reading of important topics. We derive the impression that in such a difficult task ( a portrait of a man so complex and about whom so many have written) Jenkins has succeeded.
WHY READ THIS BOOK ? This work might be even superior to Jenkins biography about another giant of English politics: Gladstone. This may be just a coincidence, but a double one if we recall the final assessment that Jenkins provides about Churchill:
.."When I started writing this book I thought that Gladstone was, by a narrow margin, the greater man, certainly the more remarkable specimen of humanity. In the course of writing it I have changed my mind. I now put Churchill, with all his idiosyncrasies, his indulgences, his occasional childishness, but also his genius, his tenacity and his persistent ability, right or wrong, successful or unsuccessful, to be larger than life, as the greatest human being ever to occupy 10 Downing Street........"

Rating:
Summary: Neither Exhaustive Nor Critical
Review: Roy Jenkins's Churchill: A Biography is propelled for 912 pages by the dynamic power of Winston Churchill, but the author does not exhaust the subject matter, nor shake him down. Although there are no apparent gaps in the narrative, and few could forgive an author for devoting so much space to Churchill's Second World War premiership, still there are dates passed more frequently than others. For instance, I was very interested in his juvenile years, which Jenkins does not tackle squarely, and was disappointed by the coverage of the inter-war years, and Churchill's retirement. Most importantly, what was the full story of Churchill's actual beliefs? Americans might not find his monarchical romanticism, his conservatism, and martial skill so favorable without such an account as Jenkins's.

Jenkins's greatest strengths are his recreations of parliamentary debate drama and the exchange of letters. The tome includes a handy reference to parliamentary procedure and jargon for those unaccustomed to the tradition, but even then, in his narratives, rarely frames the settings adequately. Perhaps because of his epistolary skill, Jenkins is much more comfortable with the analysis of words than with depicting a scene. Jenkins so liberally quotes from private correspondence, the book is liable to drift into innuendo, were it not for his judicious editing. However, one has to wonder, if perhaps certain persons might have been cheated by their inability to write good memoranda and letters. Jenkins does, though milk the most out of a bon mot or clever exchange of ideas, and fortunately (because they are so frequent and large), these passages are very entertaining.

This skill with the written word, however, does not give the book intellectual weight. This is not a good political biography, particularly, considering the almost total exclusion, outside of India, of Asian concerns. Although there is a world outside of Churchill, the book suffers from certain solipsism. For instance, Jenkins argues that Churchill's passion during his second premiership was the threat of nuclear annihilation. Jenkins, however, offers little background about whom and what political proposals Churchill was battling. Even in his coverage of the Second World War, Jenkins only gives background where Churchill is located. There is also the impression, that Jenkins is handicapped when there is more action than letter writing. Another consequence of his reliance on letters and lack of intellectual depth is an inability to make convincing suppositions about Churchill's actions without direct quotes. In fairness, though, Jenkins's references are vast and constitute almost another book worth exploring.

Although Jenkins does allow others to paint a less-appealing picture of Churchill, his epistolary skill recreates an enigma of Churchill's persona. He convincingly describes a dynamic, multi-faceted man who enjoyed power without abusing it, but does not have the space and skill to be critical, too. Jenkins is honest about his admiration for Churchill, but one is left with the impression, that in the quiet spaces lays an answer to the riddle of Churchill's enigmatic persona or some skeleton. Although his bibliography and references are competent, Jenkins does not integrate them into his portrait. As if he were painting a canvas bundled with a rough sketch, Jenkins nonetheless draws the reader to his Churchill with his favorable side showing. Unfortunately, Churchill was too consumed in his own projects to be the trustworthy, self-revealing type.

Rating:
Summary: Agree It's Unreadable
Review: As with several other readers, I too found this to be a 900 page paperweight. Jenkins had a few bright spots where I was able to see into the heart of Churchill. I especially liked Churchill's early struggle over his perceived lack of education. However, Jenkins had a great opportunity to take us into the soul of a complex man, who, regardless of one's politics, helped to make and change history. I just wish Jenkins could have been the one to help me learn more about W.S. Churchill.

Sadly, as with other readers, I put Churchill down for another book. It just so happened to be H.W. Brands' wonderful story on the Gold Rush.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive and detailed - maybe too much so
Review: There is a reason why most biographies of Churchill either concentrate on only a portion of his life or are split into multiple volumes. Here, Jenkins goes against that trend and, for better or worse, demonstrates why his comprehensive, single-volume biography is the exception to the rule. For the most part, his change is for the better, although students of Churchill's early life and/or his late career are likely to be disappointed.

Jenkins, himself a former Labour MP whose service overlapped with the tail end of his subject's, demonstrates a remarkable degree of firsthand knowledge of British politics during and just after World War II and an even more impressive collection of research on Churchill's early career as a politician, writer and adventurer. Anyone with an interest in any particular issue Churchill ever worked with is likely to find a wealth of information and analysis to work with here. Unfortunately, the sheer amount of information Jenkins wishes to impart sometimes becomes detrimental to the book's readability, as tangential analyses of a trip, an election, or even a single Parliamentary debate can drag on for pages at a time so that the reader is likely to have forgotten the chapter's primary subject by the time Jenkins returns to it. On the other hand, his dry English wit (he argues, for example, that Churchill's 1931 car accident in New York "cannot be too easily attributed to the perverse habit of the Americans of driving on the right") provides a good antidote to some of the slower passages. This shortcoming fades considerably as the book progresses; not surprisingly, Jenkins is far more articulate when discussing events of which he has a personal recollection, which he often shares in footnotes.

The book's only other shortcoming is a degree of unevenness in the amount and focus of attention on different periods of Churchill's life. It is, of course, more than reasonable to devote more ink to the World War II years than to any other time, but seven chapters on the relatively uneventful (for Churchill) 1930s versus fourteen pages on the final decade of his life is less justifiable. Also, his childhood and education are barely touched upon at all, an odd omission for a book that features minutiae down to what Churchill ate on a particular flight to Washington or Moscow later in life. This is understandable in that the book is essentially a political biography that also includes more personal details when Jenkins has them and when they fit in well with the subject at hand, but it is unclear whether that was Jenkins' real intention.

Those who are interested only in Churchill's life outside of his work (to the limited extent that he had one!) should look elsewhere. But for a sweeping assessment and critique of modern Britain's greatest leader, including his failures as well as his triumphs, this is as good as one is likely to find in fewer than 1,000 pages.

Rating:
Summary: Far too laborious in writing style
Review: I wholeheartedly agree with the frequent opinions previously voiced that Mr. Jenkins' writing style all but ruins this study of one of history's most interesting characters. I have read many lengthy biographies of various public figures and several shorter works focusing on portions of Churchill's career. I took this volume with me on a recent vacation which afforded a lot of quiet reading time and was looking forward to immersing myself in Sir Winston's life. What a struggle!! Sentences which run on longer than the Thames and frequent use of archaic English words and French phrases.

After fifty pages, I dutifully plodded on with a massive dictionary at my side. After finishing 25%, I decided to put Jenkins down for a refresher with Alan Furst's most recent WWII espionage work. Finishing Furst, I just can't make myself go back to Jenkins. I have a law degree and have written for publication myself, so writing with depth and detail is not something which normally takes me back, but this was just too painful to keep going.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating author and subject but ultimately unreadable
Review: A fascinating person writing about a fascinating person. Unfortunatrely, I found it unreadable. I tried for 8 weeks to finish it and made it over halfway but the ego of the writer kept bumping into the ego of the subject. It should have been 2 books- Book 1- ''Churchill''; Book 2- ''What Roy Jenkins really thinks about alot of things.'' I believe both books would have been fun reads, but not mixed together as here.

Rating:
Summary: Masterful and engrossing
Review: I admit to a prejudice in favor of Roy Jenkins ever since Oct 19, 1974, when I finished reading his great biography oa Asquith. I have since read his biography of Charles Dilke (read Oct 19, 1974) and of Gladstone (read Apr 19, 1997), as well as his great work on the battle over the House of Lords in 1910 called Mr. Balfour's Poodle: People vs. Peers (read Jan. 13, 1997). While this biography relies mainly on secondary sources, it is a great telling of a fantastically interesting life, filled with interest from 1895 (when Churchill was in Cuba during the Cuban struggle for independence) till his death in 1965. 1940 is of course the highlight year of the life, but I found the years preceding that and the years after that equally attention-holding. And if one had not run across before the words "resile" and "psephology" you will come to know them in this book--just an added benefit from reading it! A most worthwhile book, sure to hold you engrossed for every page.

Rating:
Summary: Churchill - A Chronology in full detail
Review: I have read a number of books about Churchill, thus appreciating the research and detail that is provided in this single biography on the subject. That is no small feat with the depth and breadth of Churchill's life. However, I found the book written in a very factual and dry manner, lacking an emotional tone that would make some of the key events in Churchill's life jump off of the page.

The author's background, enticed me to believe that I would encounter a very first hand account of many Churchill stories since Mr. Jenkins served the House of Commons in 1948 and later various ministry roles, including Chancellor of the Exchequer during the later years of Churchill's life. What I did find is a well written chronology of the events in the subjects life, written with a sense of respect for Churchill's ability to survive a political life and contribute so much to the world.

Thus, going in I made a perception error in the style of writing and content that I expected, I still found the book to be a sound account of Churchill's remarkable life. I recommed this book to all Churchill history readers.

I would recommend other books to provide more insight into why Churchill acted in key events such as: " My Early Years" by Winston S. Churchill and "The Last Lion, Winston Churchill, Alone, 1932-1940" by William Manchester.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Supplemental Source
Review: This book is a valuable supplement to readers who wish to broaden their knowledge of Churchill. If you were to read only one biography however you should make it Martin Gilbert's, Churchill: A Life. Jenkins' book gives more detailed information about the events that were happening around Churchill while Gilbert's tells history strictly as it involved Churchill. Oddly Jenkins' book gives more detail about his personal life. Neither however seems at all complete in that respect. In order to get that you might have to read Gilbert's full eight volume treatment which is available through used book dealers (try ABE.com to find a dealer - no, I am not affiliated).

Jenkins' book offers valuable insight into the causes of the resentment and animosity which Churchill aroused in others. These were basically that Churchill was not a good listener and was too successful at polemics.

Probably the most controversial part of Churchill's life was his role in the Dardanelles campaign during W.W.I. For those who want fuller information on those events I strongly recommend they supplement their reading with David Fromkin's, A Peace to End All Peace.

Where Jenkins' book most fails the reader is that it gives little hint to how Churchill became a lasting inspirational figure. Gilbert puts Churchill in a much wider perspective and helps you appreciate what was unique about his role in world events. Churchill combined not only great courage and intellect, which Jenkins acknowledges, but also compassion and foresight to a degree that he was not only a great Englishman, but also a great human being and citizen of the world. His memory inspires people of all nations who dream of a better, more peaceful future for mankind.