Churchill: Walking with Destiny

I can’t comment on the quality of this book. Going by reputable reviews, I think it is probably superb. I ordered it for my husband who I think would love it. But the typeface is so small, he can’t read read it without great difficulty. I’ll be donating it to our library. I think the publishers should be reprimanded. Who do they think are the main consumers of literature on Churchill? Older people. Don’t be such cheapskates. This book should have been published in two volumes in a legible font.

Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) lived an epic life of heroism, statesmanship, scholarship and artistic accomplishment. He was the Prime Minister (taking office on May 10th 1940 as the dark skies of Europe were clogged by the odious Luftwaffe of Nazi Germany) of Great Britain. Churchill's father was the cold and aloof Randolph Churchill who served in Parliament and the fetching beauty Jenny Jerome Churchill his social butterfly American mother. She had affairs with many men including the Prince of Wales and wed three times. Winston was scorned by his parents and considered by them to be a failure. He graduated from Sandhurst and served with distinction in India and South Africa where his daring escape from the Boers made him a household name. In a long career in Parliament he served in many posts such as Home Secretary, Secretary for the Colonies and Lord of the Admirality. He was blamed for the Gallipoli disaster of World War I and served for six months as an officer in the trenches of France. Only with the coming of Fascism did Churchill emerge from the political wilderness to lead his land to victory, By blood, toil sweat and tears the Allies at last defeated the Axis. Churchill drafted the English language and put words to war as his brilliant oratory will live forever in the minds and hearts of freedom loving people. Postwar he served as Prime Minister and wrote his war memoirs. Churchill was a genius! He was a personally kind man who loved his adoring wife Clementine, his five children, pets, painting and a vast array of eccentric friends from all walks of life. He was pro-Israel and had compassion for the poor and helpless in society. He is my ultimate hero along with Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt his wartime counterpart and friend who was POTUS. Andrew Roberts has written the best one volume biography of Sir Winston. While I admire the yeoman work of Martin Gilbert and Roy Jenkins in their fine biographies of Churchill this new biography is my favorite one! On its many pages Roberts has illuminated a great life in all its complexities and challenges. Churchill's wit and good humor, his refusal to surrender and his indomitable love of the British Empire are a wonder to behold. The author was able to obtain the permission of the Royal Family to see George VI's diary entries on his many meetings with Churchill. This magisterial biography is now the new sine qua non for Churchill scholars and general readers. The breath of the scholarship combined with Roberts' prose style have set a new standard for excellence in Churchill scholarship. The best biograpy of Churchill is well worth your money and your time. Kudos to Andrew Roberts and thanks to Sir Winston Churchill a beacon of liberty and love in a world of cruelty and hate. Excellent!

I love the content of the book. However the publisher did a poor job on this initial release. The book literally stinks the room (not sure if it is the paper or the ink). Many pages were smudged, wet ink from one page got onto opposite page, please see the attached photo of a example.

Winston Churchill gets a lot of biographies so the most obvious question is why has Andrew Roberts written yet another one. Since the last major Churchill biography (by Roy Jenkins in 2001, and light on new archival research) numerous new archives have opened up. Most importantly Andrew Roberts got permission from Buckingham Palace to read the previously unopened wartime diaries of King George VI. These diaries shed new light on the relationship between Churchill and the King and offer and insider's view into Britain during the war. Roberts also has access to the recently-discovered diaries of the Soviet Ambassador to the United Kingdom Ivan Maisky and to the papers of Churchill’s children, neither of which were available to previous biographers.Of course, Andrew Roberts is at his best describing the moments when Churchill was at *his* best: the precarious hours in 1940 when France fell to the Nazis and the members of Churchill’s own War Cabinet were seduced by offers of peace. It fell to Churchill to rally a wavering cabinet and an out-gunned nation to defend herself against Hitler at a time when no other nation would. Roberts’ mastery of the detail is near-perfect and his prose is… dare I say it? Churchillian. The reader feels heat of the clashes in the War Cabinet in the spring of 1940, trembles with anticipation during the Battle of Britain (even though we of course know how it all turned out) and savors in the glory of Britain’s (and the world’s) victory in 1945.When it comes to Churchill’s life before the War, there is considerably more information that is already known and Andrew Roberts is excellent here as well. The reader sees how Churchill’s aristocratic confidence in Britain (and unyielding confidence in Winston Churchill) guided him through the controversy over the Dardanelles, the Gold Standard, India, and ultimately appeasement, the one crisis where Churchill is unanimously credited with getting it right when damn near everyone else got it wrong. Finally, Churchill returns to the premiership in 1951, unable to bring the United States and the Soviets together and unwilling to yield to his cabinet’s desire that he stand aside. When he finally does stand aside, the reader can’t help but admire Churchill’s tenacity and desire to stay in politics even when he is clearly too old to stay in the fight.Although Roberts is willing to acknowledge that Churchill was flawed in some ways, the conclusion is that Churchill’s monumental significance outweighs all of those flaws and his victory in a titanic struggle against an unimaginable evil makes those flaws seem like dust. I have my own biases to be sure as I was privileged to advise Andrew on the proofs of the book (spelling, style, fact-checking, etc…), but the work is his own entirely and my praise is my own entirely. This is an extraordinary book and if you are even tangentially interested in history then you would do well to buy it and buy a few more for your friends.

A remarkable book that hold the readers interest throughout its entire length - a tribute to the writing and, more truthfully, a great life. As other reviewers have said, new sources add only a little to a well known story, but it is such a story that the reader hardly notices. If Churchill had been a fictitious character, one would have struggled to believe all that one man could go through so many adventures - personally, militarily, and politically.The fact that the author is clearly a Churchill fan occasionally jars, but for the most part this a well balanced account that is more than just hero-worship. There is also the (very, very) occasional factual error that slipped through proofreading/editing, but again these in no way take away from an absorbing read. Five stars, fully justified.

I have in my library nearly 100 books on or about Churchill - and I have to say this has to be one of the very best, single volume editions I’ve ever read. The attention to detail and the writing and narrative styles are truly fantastic. Having read a lot of books about this incredible man - I can honestly say that this is up there with the best.The pictures, presentation & literary skill makes this book a pure reading treat! This, surely, has to be the ‘go to’ one stop book on Churchill. This is, quite simply, a huge literary achievement! Credit to the author: this is a remarkable book.

After his superlative biography of Napoleon, it may have been difficult to contemplate Andrew Roberts producing a finer work but in Churchill: Walking with Destiny, his latest book, he has succeeded. The clue is in the title. The first part of the book exams Churchill's experiences of life as a front line soldier and senior politician before the momentous events of May 1940 which the author is at pains to explain provided Winston with the hard won knowledge that formed his views on how to run the government of a democracy in the age of total war.The eternal difficulty in writing a new biography of such a (seemingly) well known figure is to provide fresh insights and information. Andrew Roberts has unearthed new sources such as the diary of King George VI which provide fascinating commentary from those who dealt closely with the greatest Briton and their personal views of him.The second part of the book presents the author with a conundrum: how much to leave out? How can he provide details on every aspect of Churchill's running of the war, every campaign, every idea both good and bad, every argument with those around him in a manageable single volume? The answer is he does not. Instead he provides clear and succinct passages on all the major events without becoming bogged down in too much extraneous detail while peppering the narrative with often amusing anecdotes about Winston's personal behaviour and relationships with those around him.Andrew Roberts does not shy from the usual Churchill controverises e.g. Tonypandy, gassing the Kurds, India etc. Indeed it can appear that he spends too much time expunging so many of the ridiculous myths that have inexplicably become part of the contemporary narrative on Winston Churchill. But he is right to. It is the role of the serious historian to get to the heart of the matter, report the facts and let the reader judge for themselves.This is a wonderful book. The prose is highly readable, sparkles with insight and the book is filled with anecdotal gems. Any writer who can make Edwardian tariff reform both interesting and stimulating deserves all the credit that comes. A truly fine biography and quite probably the best single volume on Churchill you are likely ever to read.

This is how a biography should be written. Detailed but gripping; appreciative of the subject but clear about failings as well as genius. What a read: impossible to put down!

Andrew Roberts’ biography of the man who tens of millions worldwide regarded in 1945 as “probably the greatest man alive” is a highly literate page-turner full of fresh perspectives. While not eschewing controversies which dogged Churchill’s reputation throughout his career (most of them exaggerated and stoked by jealous political rivals), Roberts presents the facts & detailed evidence in each case, allowing the reader to draw his/her own conclusions. Among hundreds of previously-published biographies of Churchill, this might justifiably claim to be the best-ever, certainly in a single volume.Roberts’ narrative structure is that of traditional classic biography with a chronological timeline. Alongside the public parliamentary battles and legion of detractors Churchill created by ‘crossing the floor’ not once but twice before 1922 (to more effectively champion his centrist/liberal positions in support of home rule for Ireland, women’s suffrage, the introduction of the welfare state and House of Lords reform), mistakes in the conduct of the First World War are not glossed over but recounted in forensic detail which never fails to engage. Subsequent years ‘in the wilderness’ prior to his celebrated leadership through WW2 are matched by deep insights into Churchill's personal life, chronic financial difficulties and highly supportive marriage.The reader is reminded again and again of Churchill’s great resilience, legendary capacity for work and formidable oratory skill: in the 40 years prior to becoming PM in 1940, Churchill had given more than 1,000 public speeches in Parliament, at formal meetings or out ‘on the stump.’ One factor of which I was previously unaware was the great number of personal injuries Churchill suffered, particularly in his early 20s, including a four-times dislocated shoulder and many broken bones.Fearless - some might say foolhardy - in the presence of physical danger, Churchill was often under enemy fire right up to 1916 when as a serving MP with already a long record of active military service he nevertheless volunteered for the western front following the failure of the Dardanelles venture. He once observed: “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result” and he was, indeed, shot at without result on numerous occasions. Churchill’s legendary impish wit and clever insight shines through even in situations of the gravest adversity.Roberts’ book is a fine lesson in how biography ought to be written and is highly recommended, especially to readers interested in this remarkable and important figure of the 20th century and not intimidated by the book’s >1,000 pages’ length. It’s an impressive achievement.

Described by the critics as the best single-volume about Churchill ever written this wonderful book is not to be missed.Andrew Roberts writes with clarity and charm about the great man; his amazing resilience, courage and wit, as well as his almost superhuman capacity for work, and of course his incomparable powers of oratory. More than that, there are details and quotes and stories that most of us didn't know before. The book is tremendously enjoyable and a huge achievement.