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Title: Churchill: Visionary. Statesman. Historian. by John Lukacs ISBN: 0-300-09769-7 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.2 (5 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: A throwaway
Comment: And a tolerably worthwhile throwaway, considering Lukacs's knowledge of his subject. If you have decent familiarity with the issues, this book won't weigh you down and it adds nuance to the accepted portrait of Churchill. But this is certainly not an introduction to Churchill and the author's biases, particularly against Eisenhower, mar the presentation. This chafed at me in particular, and I hold no particular brief for Ike. But Lukacs is an historian, yet he swipes at Eisenhower throughout the second half of the book, almost never building an argument but rather using innuendo. He largely assumes that the reader shares his biases, more in the way of punditry than scholarship. I don't regret reading the book, but I am sure I could have made more productive use of the time and money on another Churchill work.
Rating: 3
Summary: Decent, but not compelling...
Comment: For the record, I admire John Lukacs as a historian... However, this thin volume (essentially a collection of mini-essays) doesn't really do much to add to the already abundant amount of Churchill scholarship... Lukacs clearly worships Churchill and therefore the book comes across as a simple hagiography. Lukacs' strength is his ability to spin a narrative while not getting bogged down with excessive facts. However, sometimes he can seem to wander off on rather obscure emotional tangents...
This book is fine as an introduction to Churchill, but for someone who wants a more in-depth look at the great man, I suggest turning to the rather more weighty biographies by Martin Gilbert and Roy Jenkins, or indeed his own earlier, and infinitely more interesting title, "Five Days in London."
Rating: 2
Summary: Lukacs and Churchill-the love affair continues
Comment: John Lukacs is a Catholic anglophile and a conservative Christian Democrat who fled from Hungary at the beginning of the cold war. At the same time he has never forgiven the Republican party right for its refusal to help Britain (and the rest of Europe) at her darkest hour. Winston Churchill has always been his hero. About fifteen years ago Lukacs wrote a book on the 80 day "duel" between Churchill and Hitler in the summer of 1940. A few years ago he wrote a more popular book that looked at ten of those days. This third book concentrates on Churchill, and it is the most disappointing yet.
Lukacs looks at Churchill "the visionary," and his relationships with Stalin, FDR, and Eisenhower. He then discusses appeasement, Churchill's skill as a historian, his failures, and then concludes with his memories of Churchill's funeral. Basically this book is a shallow collection of essays which add nothing to our knowledge of the man. There are not even many telling details or pungent anecdotes. There is nothing wrong in arguing, as Lukacs does, that Churchill was right not to make a deal with Hitler, and that he is not to blame for the fact that postwar Poland was a Communist dictatorship. But most historians have never doubted these matters, and Lukacs has nothing new to add. Lukacs has never really cared for archival research, nor has he really paid much attention to what other scholars say. At one point he states that the Soviet Union was not really interested in defending Czechoslovakia in 1938, nor was it really interested in negotiating an alliance with France and Britain the following years. Perhaps, but it is important to point out that in recent years Hugh Ragsdale and Michael J. Carley have produced well documented arguments to the contrary, and that Lukacs not only does not refute them, he appears to be unaware of their existence. Likewise, the chapter on Eisenhower and Churchill concentrates on Churchill's proposals in 1953 to try to make a deal with the post-Stalin leadership, which Eisenhower peremptorily brushed aside. Was an opportunity to end, or shorten, the cold war carelessly thrown away? Perhaps, but other scholars, such as John W. Young and Jaclyn Stanke, have discussed the issue in far greater detail than Lukacs. Many scholars dislike Stephen Ambrose for his terminus into plagiarism and middlebrow eminence. Notwithstanding that, his argument that Eisenhower and his small armies could not have snatched the honor of taking Berlin from Zhukov's larger forces still stands, and Lukacs does nothing to refute it.
Lukacs exaggerates Churchill's perceptiveness. Contra Lukacs, Churchill's fears of German revenge in 1924 were not boldly original, but a commonplace among the British. It did not take great insight after the 1930 German elections to realize, as Churchill did, that Hitler was an important politician. And Churchill was not alone in 1935 in fearing a possible war from Hitler. The chapter on Churchill's histories is indulgent and complacent, as Lukacs applauds Churchill for his style and memorable image. Unfortunately, this confuses history with journalism, and Lukacs is less informative on this than David Reynolds and J.H. Plumb. Lukacs mentions Churchill's faults, but his account of the Dardanelles fiasco, the catastrophic return to the Gold Standard and Churchill's opposition to Indian independence are brief and apologetic. Christopher Thorne is more accurate on Churchill's bigotry and the price of his imperialist illusions. David Cannadine is far more acute on his awful family who, with the exception of his wife and his daughter, Lady Soames, were incredibly selfish and irresponsible. Cannadine is also acute on Churchill's ignorance of modern day life, noting that Churchill took the underground only once, and he had to be rescued, because he didn't know how to get off.
"Churchill and Hitler were, at any rate, the two protagonists of the dramatic phase of the last war, even though Roosevelt and Stalin played the decisive role in its epic phase, at the end." As a distinction, this does not work very well. Was there nothing dramatic about the defense of Leningrad and the battle of Kursk? But for Lukacs it is important to view the conflict as one between Hitler and Churchill, even though he is well aware that Churchill could not have won without the USA and the USSR. For Churchill is an icon, a symbol of the liberal, aristocratic order. When Churchill saved Britain in 1940 he redeemed this order's honor. One can only contrast with the actual ruling class of interwar Hungary who led that country into a vicious, genocidal war. That contrast is more interesting than anything Lukacs has to say in this book.
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Title: Winston Churchill: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives) by John Keegan ISBN: 0670030791 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 10 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Duel: The Eighty-Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler by John Lukacs ISBN: 0300089163 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Five Days in London: May 1940 by John Lukacs ISBN: 0300084668 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Churchill: A Study in Greatness by Geoffrey Best ISBN: 0195161394 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill : A Brief Account of a Long Life by Gretchen Rubin ISBN: 0345450477 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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