Rating: 
Summary: A very 'British' biography...
Review: This is a very different biography from several other lives of Churchill I've read. Roy Jenkins is a parliamentarian and a former British government Minister. His biography calls upon the reader for an almost encyclopedic knowledge of British history from the 1860's onward. It would be good to know of the various crises in Gladstone's premiership for example, and about who was on various sides of British parliamentary politics when Joseph Chamberlain was central to British governmental policies. I think this is a rather tough knowledge base for all but the most Anglophile of American readers; it makes it somewhat tough going for even fairly scholarly laypeople.That said, the book is very well written and gives the flavor of Churchill as a British politician struggling through ups and downs, times he was popular, times in the wilderness. It is a very balanced view--this is definitely not the 'Churchill as hero who saved civilization' view. This is the Churchill as an admittedly great man who used every advantage of his Duke grandfather and Chancellor of the Exchequer father and femme fatale mother to get where he wanted to go--the top, quickly. I've enjoyed the book and appreciated the balance but sometimes had to persist through tough going for an American.
Rating: 
Summary: Weighty and Rewarding
Review: Jenkin's colorful prose maintains its rythm and momentum throughout this substantial work. As the author states, there is nothing particularly new in his Churchill biography that has not been covered in other efforts; however, Jenkin's age and his personal political experience in Britain provides him with unique perspective. Well-balanced, Jenkin's developed an affinity for his subject that is typical of biography writers, but he does not shy away from being critical for those personal and professional deficiencies of Churchill. A weighty, but extremely rewarding, read.
Rating:
Summary: Churchill review
Review: Churchill is a great book to read. If you like history, especially WWII, then you should read this book. Churchill was a great leader and helped save his country from complete destruction. This book shows the bold actions that he had to take in order to save the British people. I recommend it to everyone.
Rating: 
Summary: The vultures gather...
Review: ...but the carcass is pretty much picked clean by this point. Frankly I am baffled as to what Roy Jenkins' motives were in writing this book. In 900 plus pages he fails to give us much new factual material on his subject, and I found his endless speculation on how much & of what Churchill might have drunk on a particular occasion bordering on the offensive. As other reviewers have pointed out, this is a "political biography" that I suppose tries to focus on Churchill's role in Parliament, but Jenkins manages to both divorce debate from the larger issues on the world stage, and to confuse his readers with spontaneous jumps in time and space and the frequent use of "inside" jargon. It is important to remember that Jenkins was a long-time parliamentary opponent of Churchill, and he never fails to trumpet Labour ideology whenever the opportunity presents itself. What non-British readers of this book will make of some of this I can only imagine! Indeed, I have been struggling to come up with an American equivalent for this book. It is as if Al Gore were to write a biography of Eisenhower, although I suspect that Al would pay more attention to the context of Ike's actions -and do it in fewer pages. What is peculiar is that although Jenkins engages in regular ad hominem critiques of Churchill, he ends by saying that he was probably the greatest Prime Minister in recent memory -but then this from a man who regularly extols Clement Attlee must be regarded as faint praise at best. If you MUST read everything on WSC, then I suppose this will give you some insights on the peculiarities of the Mother of Parliaments, but I am left at the end reminded of T.E. Lawrence's poem that begins THE SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM: "and now
The little things creep out to patch themselves hovels
in the marred shadow
Of your gift."
Rating:
Summary: Well written volume about an amazing life
Review: Roy Jenkins has done an incredible job of boiling down the incredible life story of Winston Churchill into a single volume, albeit one spanning just over 800 pages. Although I had some familiarity with Churchill prior to reading this, I was amazed by the amazing breadth of Churchill's accomplishments. From his early service in the British Army, to his escape from a POW camp during the Boer War, from his early times in the British Cabinet during the First World War, his fall from grace between the wars, and his triumph in 1940, when the world trembled before Hitler's seemingly unstoppable armies, ending with his second premiership and his final years, Jenkins covers it all. Although Jenkins' style is sometimes difficult to read, the book is very well researched, and he is careful to annotate almost every one of his claims. Although he is clearly impressed with Churchill, as was I after reading the book, Jenkins is careful not to whitewash Churchill's life. He is as meticulous in his attribution of Churchill's many mistakes and failures as with his triumphs. Jenkins has extensive service in the British Parliament and Cabinet government, which allows him to provide many useful insights into the British government process, and helps a reader like myself, without much understanding of the parliamentary process, better understand the issues Churchill dealt with. Jenkins has written a book worthy of his subject. Although it can take a little work to get through it all, it's quite worth it.
Rating:
Summary: A political biography: shows workings of Churchill's genius.
Review: This is a wonderful biography. Jenkins has an easygoing story style that is fun to read. He also opens the door and shows the internal workings of Churchill's greatness. So many "great man" biographies concentrate on great events and great decisions, to the exclusion of understanding the unique contributions of the man. This book examines the political and literary education which Churchill brought to the table in World War II, the great and small dramas which marked his long accomplished life. Writing a master work on Marlborough was a form of self-education, as was Churchill's history of the English Speaking Peoples. Both elevated his expectations for the British people in war, and he lead them to fulfill his elevated expectations. The historian as leader.... Endless parliamentary debates, including some very real humiliations, gave Churchill a tempered sense of what he could accomplish -- this idealist was probably only ready to lead at age 65, because this education broke against the prow of his stubborn sense of right and wrong. Jenkins captures these formative influences with nuance and drama. This book is an excellent one-volume biography, and provides a daunting argument that life's challenges educate a great leader in a rough and tumble; that self-education also plays a role; that meeting great challenges is the work of a lifetime; that losing and defeat play their role... By the way, this book is not bloated, as one review says, unless you prefer the comic book approach.
Rating: 
Summary: long winded and drawn out
Review: I read Roy Jenkins's biography of Churchill soon after Edmund Morris's The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. Jenkins work did not compare. His writing was drawn out and labored, with extensive references to obscure members of the British aristocracy and long passages on parliamentary procedures. The author's constant reminder of his own career in parliament was an annoying distraction. The book's strongest section was the chapters on Churchill's wartime conferences with FDR and Stalin. I have always admired Churchill and I was looking for a well-written comprehensive biography. I am still searching for that book.
Rating: 
Summary: Tedious Bio!
Review: I cannot believe I read the entire 900+ pages. It was a very tedious endeavor, and I stress the word "tedious." Even though this monumental tome went into minute detail on aspects of Churchill's life, most were not that interesting. I didn't really get "to know" Churchill as one does when one reads a biography by someone of the caliber of Robert Caro. I guess I should have read Manchester's volumes, even though it doesn't cover WWII.
Rating:
Summary: Humility Didn't Fit
Review: Winston Churchill knew he was talented and spent his adult life proving it. This wonderful book tells the story. I would give it five stars if it weren't so long, yet the details are captivating and well worth the effort. Jenkins, biographer of earlier British PMs (Gladstone and Asquith) and himself a former Chancellor of the Exchequer and a Member of Parliament for decades, writes with extraordinary skill. He brings Churchill to life and, in this chronological biography, brings the reader close to the person who led Britain through the darkest days of World War II. For anyone with even a passing interest in the political life of Great Britain during the twentieth century, this is a "must read."
Rating:
Summary: Champagne
Review: Roy Jenkins' biography is not the place to start discovering Winston Churchill. Readers unfamiliar with the chronology of his career and its historical context will get lost. Indeed so much has been written about Churchill and by Churchill, that Jenkins (and many others) must wonder what he can add to the literature. In this case, though, I think that's a little like asking what fizz adds to champagne. Jenkins makes WSC sparkle and that's a good enough reason for him to have written, and the reader to read, this biography. Its not a ground-breaking, revisionist, or exhaustive biography. It's a good, long, witty savoring of the career of a man so accomplished, so talented, so energetic and so fascinating that anyone who can write about him freshly should do so. And Jenkins is eminently qualified to write about WSC. As a biographer, Parliamentarian, and master of English prose, Jenkins has trod many of the trails walked by his subject, though not so fast and far as his subject. He thus knows first-hand how much Churchill labored on his journey. The literature on Winston Churchill deserves such a biography, I think, simply because it measures how irreproducible that life and career was.
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