Churchill: A Biography

Rating:
Summary: Interesting But Flawed Biography Of Churchill!
Review: Few figures so capture the public imagination as does Winston Churchill. In many ways he is remembered as being larger than life, a man of great scope, wit, and imagination, and a very complicated human being indeed. I may be in the minority here, but I didn't find this biographical work by English historian and sometime politician Roy Jenkins particularly compelling. Jenkins' writing style is at times more than a bit stuffy, and he has an unfortunate tendency to lapse into very formal English, as one might expect someone with the author's impeccable academic pedigree would be prone to do. This stylistic approach hampers the exposition of a very long, convoluted, and often tediously selective set of recollections about Churchill, as often as not based on incidents witnessed by the author. While having the capability to recall such personal experiences with one of the most famous figures of the 20th century sometimes makes for fascinating reading (and sometimes not), it does not necessarily make for a comprehensive or balanced biographical picture of the subject at hand. Therein lies my problem with the book.

Yet it would be unfair and inaccurate to dismiss this massive, well-researched, and occasionally quite brilliant treatment of Mr. Churchill as a personal memoir. Had I not already read a number of other authors' efforts (most notably Sir Martin Gilbert) regarding Churchill, I might not be so critical of the present effort by Mr. Jenkins. Of course, Sir Gilbert is the single most acknowledged Churchill scholar, and his output in this regard borders on the unbelievable. However, he is an incredibly prolific writer, and the list of his books boggles the mind of the average reader (including yours truly). And there have been others who have offered the reader a much more comprehensive, balanced, and coherent portrait of Winston Churchill. Moreover, one can always turn to the mammoth works penned by Churchill himself, which while of questionable objectivity, certainly represent an authoritative interpretation of his experiences, especially during the conduct of the Second World War.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that this is the first book that I have read by Mr. Jenkins. If it is indeed representative of his style and approach, it will likely also be the last. Once again, This is not to say that there is not a lot of substantive work here, but rather to caution the reader that this is more often a set of personal recollections about his personal experiences in the vicinity of Churchill, or during the times of Churchill, than it is a balanced, comprehensive, and objective biography of Churchill or an accurate history of his times. Taken for what it is, it is a good, if long and tiring, read. I can recommend it with these qualifications. But if you are looking for a more conventional, approachable, and readable biography of Churchill, look for my review of Sir Martin Gilbert's biography of Winston Churchill. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Discovering a Great Man
Review: I had never read a book on Churchill prior to this one so I cannot compare it to any. On the other hand, I discovered, thanks to Mr. Jenkins meticulous style for detail, one of the most remarkable men in history and, in Mr. Jenkins opinion (he was a Member of Parliament for 60 years and has written numerous biographies of other prominent characters in recent British history) the greatest politician Britain has known.

As with all biographies, there are two basic challenges: how much you put in and how deep you go into a person's psyche based on the information you have. With regard to detail of content, Jenkins covers a very long period given that Churchill lived to the age of 90. This said he tends to focus more on details provided by sources he considers more opinioned: Churchill's wife for instance and some of his closest advisors. We cannot know what he has left out, but certainly what he has included is very satisfying in presenting both the weaknesses and the strengths of this man.

As for the psyche of Churchill, this is another matter. It is often difficult to opine on what are the real motivations, fears, and tastes of a person, even from their own stated views. In the case of Churchill, as a true upper lipped Englishman, the views were not always forthcoming and, when they were, were not always congruent. Jenkins has therefore tried to build a sense of what Churchill wanted and didn't want as a man but it tends to focus on the hard and not the soft: on what actually happened and how it was analysed than on what might have happened or what were the internal debates within Churchill's own mind.

This latter might have been for lack of source material, but although it would have been nice to have had more "soft" included in the narrative, it does not take away from the fact that this is a very great bibliography. It is made that much more enjoyable for the fact that Jenkins, as an MP, is able to add his own observations on how certain aspects of Parliament are carried out or were carried out and how Churchill's antics played out in the life of British parliamentary policitics.

A fascinating book for an American reader to understand the monumental differences between British and American democracy. Can you imagin that the American president could be recalled at any moment by a simple vote of no confidence among his cabinet! Also a fascinating introduction, for any person appreciating the English language, to learn (if they did not already know)of the great oratorical skills of this man.

A moving tribute for its ability to present a great statesman while outlining all of his faults in the process.

Rating:
Summary: Quite readable, nicely done
Review: Jenkins, a history professor and Member of Parliament himself as well as the author of an acclaimed bio of Gladstone, presents a fine biography of Britain's greatest 20th century figure.

His own experiences uniquely qualify him to describe Churchill's political fortunes and maneuverings, although the American reader may find the Teens and Twenties either slow going or not sufficiently illuminating of Britain's odd political system, wherein politicians regularly shopped around for a district to represent, even after being defeated in another.

This is a fairly traditional public and political bio, not a psychoanalysis (not to imply that Churchill HAD much of a personal life to expose), and moves along at a surprisingly good clip despite its 900-plus pages.

Jenkins fully reminds us that Churchill basically earned his living as a writer -- the contracts, writing schedules, and royalties are carefully recorded -- though politics was his avocation.

The author writes cleanly and engagingly, though he seems inordinately fond of unnecessarily unusual words like "psephological" and "rumbustious." On the other hand, his wit is dry and regularly in evidence.

The U.S. hardcover edition by Farrar, Straus & Giroux is clean until about the halfway point, whereupon one begins to encounter "Feburary" (436), "replies hardly every being allowed" (553) "shore up the the" (706), "dimayed" (721), "The opposition could chose when to relax" (837-8), and similar infelicities.

All in all, Jenkins seems to strike a nice balance between a healthy respect for his subject and a clear eye for Churchill's weaknesses, changes of direction, and occasional seizures of dishonesty.

Well illustrated with more than 90 b&w photos.

Rating:
Summary: Packed With Knowledge!
Review: Perhaps the greatest tribute to the work of author Roy Jenkins is that, at times, he seemed to know what Winston Churchill was actually thinking - and you're pretty sure he's right. When the mind you're reading about belongs to perhaps the greatest Prime Minister in the history of Great Britain, Nobel-prize winner Winston Churchill, that is a pretty impressive accomplishment. Jenkins' biography is essentially unsentimental, and reveals Churchill's idiosyncrasies and errors in an honest manner that serves only to elevate, rather than tarnish, the legacy of the man who rallied the free world to resist the tyranny of National Socialism. Jenkins has written an extraordinary volume which we highly recommends to any student of history.

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: 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: 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.