Winston Churchill, Visions of Glory by William Manchester

William Manchester was a great biographer in the second half of the twentieth century. Writing about Kennedy, the American Century as a whole, and most notably what is considered the definitive biography of Winston Churchill.

Manchester died before he could publish the last of the planned trilogy but we are told that the final book, much delayed, put together by another author from Manchester's notes will be published next month. For many who have loved the first two books this is great news.

Knowing that all the book would be available to me I began my much delayed plan to learn more about this legendary public figure. Having read several books about Franklin Roosevelt I was quite familiar with Churchill as a historic figure but wanted to learn more.

I have to say that in reading the first book in the series which covers Churchill from birth to 1932 I was sorely disappointed. I have not seen a bad review for the Manchester series. People love it, they call it a masterwork, I call it clunky and poorly written.

Sometimes you only feel what you feel. I love biographies, my reading history makes that clear. Some obvious potential problems for me with this book stand out, namely that much of the first 58 years of his life were spent in the lower echelons of government and certainly a great deal of the book examines his military career. It is well established that I am not a great military historian, my interest is slim in the nuts and bolts of war, who moved troops here, whose great strategy won this battle, perhaps it was preordained I would thus not like this book.

The book does offer a wide ranging look at Churchill's youth. It is not pretty. Born the grandson of a Duke Churchill was brought up in a life of privilege. Still for all that he had just as important is what he did not have. He did not have a loving family. His greatest patron in his early life, the one person who truly loved him, was his nanny. His mother was an American. Extramarital affairs were not considered stigmatized by the upper classes at this time and Jennie Churchill made sure she took advantage of this. By almost any standard she was a promiscuous woman even though she slept with only the best of men. His father was incapable of loving his son, any chance he had of changing was taken away by his being struck syphilitic after a drunken encounter with a crone in his youth. Perhaps the most freeing event of his youth for Churchill was when his father passed on and he no longer had to fight for acceptance and approval that was not to come.

This was all interesting and I do not object to biographies that go into minutiae. Still comparing Manchester's writing of Churchill's youth with, for example, Robert Carp's writing on the youth of Lyndon Johnson the contrast is remarkable. Perhaps if nothing else it shows the absolute stunning ability of Caro more than it does that Manchester was not the best biography writer.

Or it could mean nothing more than that for whatever reason this book did not work for me. I will plan at some point to pick up book two. Perhaps at that time in his life the material will be more interesting and will overcome the writing style of which I just cannot speak well of.

December, 1941 by Craig Shirley

This recently released book was one that I was looking forward to reading. The book promised to go into detail of the 31 days of December, 1941 telling us not only the political but also how the Pearl Harbor attack and subsequent war footing affected each and every American and their daily lives.

For me hearing how individuals reacted, what they bought, read and felt is like a vision into the lives of my parents. My parents had been married two years when World War II broke out, my Dad was declared 4f due to his flat feet but worked at BIW during the war in shipbuilding. Any looking glass into their lives at a time of their lives I never witnessed or heard much about is very interesting to me.

Shirley's book does a good job. We see how blackouts took hold, how newspapers were instantly censored. We see about the pending changes to American industry. Rubber was needed, so new new tires. New Cars were verboten as businesses from auto makers to vaccum makers were repurposed for military production.

Politics is a big part. We see much of Roosevelt and his cabinet. We see how Hawaii is devastated. This is a very useful book though Shirley's writing is not very captivating..or at least as captivating as I felt it could have been with this subject matter.

This book has a significant fault however. For whatever reason Shirley, in a book that purports to tell how all Americans came together and worked toward a common goal, a time when division was next to non existent, chooses at times to let his personal politics have a sharply divisive tone. It does not permeate the whole book so thankfully there is much good in this book. Out of the blue however will be mean spirited comments and asides all directed toward those of the Democratic persuasion. Shirley, which I would have known had I checked his previous writings , is a clear Conservative.

His pithy comments on Gloria Vanderbilt seem small and slightly obsessive as is his negativity to Fiorello Laguardia who in this time period was head of Roosevelt's office OCD office. Perhaps ten or twelve times in the book I came across an unusually harsh or opiniated paragraph. Inserted almost alien like into an otherwise interesting book. Still with this many references of the sort it is clear it is a path chosen.

Strange, disheartening and ultimately causing this book to be much less than it would be otherwise.

Shirley is off my list of authors to read or trust.

Woodrow Wilson by John Milton Cooper Jr.

This was an interesting book. Woodrow Wilson was one of the Presidents who did not follow the normal patch to political success. Wilson was an academic. He had become an attourney but his heart was not in it and he gravitated to academia ending up as a Professor at Princeton and eventually President of the same.

Remarkably he soon became a contender for the Governorship of New Jersey and directly after this election he became a strong contender for the Democratic nomination for President. The timing was perfect, the Democrats had been in the proverbial wasteland for so long the party was devoid of contenders, the fact that William Jennings Bryan who had been the nominee three times for the Democrats in the last twenty years showed this.

In 1912 the Republicans fractured with Teddy Roosevelt bolting the party after Taft was renomindated as the incumbent. An argument could be made that this split made the path much easier for Wilson although with the Progressive backers being a strange mix from both parties it is hard to know if this is true.

Wilson has been criticized for his League of Nations idea or perhaps more so for his failure to compromise on the ratification of the treaty with the Senate which revolted against Wilson led by Henry Cabot Lodge.

Wilson did accomplish many things in office but for whatever reason those accomplishments have not become a part of the common historical record. His personality was not one considered warm and he did indeed have a way of grating on even those in his corner.

Wilson after working tirelessly in Europe at the culmination of World War II returned home haggard, drawn and tired and soon suffered a major stroke. This certainly limited his ability to fight for the treaty, though it seems unlikely that he would have ever had the votes to accomplish his goals unless he showed a heretofore ability to compromise.

After having read recently Colenol Roosevelt, the story of Roosevelt's later years including Wilson's Presidency this book certainly tells the history from a differnt point of view. Interestingly the histories are told quite similarily, however a sure difference is the Roosevelt book centers much on his disagreements with Wilson's policies while the Wilson book acknowledges Roosevelt's disagreements but does not seem to infer Roosevelt and his disagreement had much of impact on Wilson.

Wilson was a self contained man and it could well be true that no disagreement really bothered him. He was an enigma. He was however the only two term Democratic president between Jackson and FDR with the exception of Cleveland whose terms were not successive. This was quite an accomplishment against the grain of the current politic.

Many of his ideas became templates and precursors to the ideas of FDR, his Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

Wilson's legacy will always be conflicted but his import should not be. This is an interesting read and one well worth your time.

In the Dark Streets Shineth by David McCullough

This very small gift book which comes with a DVD tells the story of Christmas 1941.

Three small stories set the tone. The story of the Christmas carols " O Little Town of Bethlehem" and " I'll Be Home For Christmas"

When one thinks of the setting of the latter, soldiers away from home, fighting overseas missing their loved ones there may not be another song as moving.

The other story told is that of the visit if Winston Churchill to Washington at Christmas 1941 and the small story of that Christmas Eve ceremony held. The official program for the event does not mention Churchill as his visit was top secret as the head of Great Britian crossing the Atlantic was a significant security risk.

The book is tiny, the stories small but heartfelt, the pictures from the era quite compelling.

$19.95 would be hard to spend, you could read it standing at the bookstore in 5 minutes but from the library surely a worthwhile read for someone interested in what America faced and faced together. That in itself is a telling lesson for us today.

Citizens of London by Lynne Olsen

For well over a year England faced down Germany by itself in the European War. France had fallen, the low countries had collapsed and Russia had struck a peace with Germany that allowed Germany to focus on it's battle with England.

The Royal Air Force fighting off the constant barrage from the Luftwaffe and the ability to recover from the nightly assaults of the Germans Air Force was something to behold.

Into this three Americans entered. Averill Harriman the administrator of Lend Lease, John Winant who replaced the hated ( by the British) Joe Kennedy as ambassador to England and Edward R Murrow the correspondent for CBS Radio. These men all did as much as they could to keep Americans involved in what was going on across the ocean. Living in London it became impossible for them to be totally objective, it soon became obvious to them that allowing London to fall would be in political terms a mistake and in human terms an absolute moral disgrace.

President Roosevelt, fearful of the isolationist movement in the United States felt that he could not lead America too far too fast. It is easy to think now that this was cowardly of him but Americans were simply not there, and the Republicans were certainly not in a mood to cooperate.

Churchill was, Churchill, a contrast of personality, bluster and bluff but one who in the end became a spiritual leader of his whole country. There are those that said Churchill saved the country. If he did he had much help.

The stories of Winant and Murrow have special interest and Winant comes out of this a man who should not be forgotten both for his roles described in the book and earlier as a progressive governor. His life is one that once one sees the end can only be viewed as a tragedy. Murrow became the stuff of legend and this book does nothing to reduce his legend.

Harriman, to me, was not a man I could embrace as easily. Certainly he did accomplish many great things and was working with his country's future as his goal. His character does not appear as crystal clear as his counterparts but even so it is information well worth knowing about this man who became a powerful figure in Democratic circles for decades.

Those who lived in London from 1939 to 1945 lived in an exciting, horrific time. As has been said there were no black and whites, all colors were bright and vivid. Life was intense in all ways. Lynne Olsen does a great job letting us know about this time and place