In the Footsteps of Churchill - Softcover

Holmes, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0563493348 ISBN 13: 9780563493341

Publisher: BBC Books, 2006

Synopsis

Richard Holmes' insightful new biography of one of Britain's greatest leaders is both a study in character and the story of an extraordinary career. Much has been written about Churchill's role as British prime minister during the crisis years of the Second World War, but in this book Holmes uses new material to investigate the influences that shaped the man: his troubled school days, his flamboyant politician father, Randolph, and his famously attractive American mother, Jennie. Holmes argues that the qualities that made Churchill great also led him to commit catastrophic blunders. The same recklessness that made him a hero when he was a young correspondent during the Boer War arguably cost thousands of Allied lives during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915, and may also have contributed to the fall of Singapore in 1942." In the Footsteps of Churchill" takes us on an exhilarating journey through Harrow School, the North-West Frontier, the Sudan, South Africa, 10 Downing Street and his beloved Chartwell; a journey that begins in the aristocratic splendor of Blenheim Palace and ends in the quiet of a country churchyard not far away - the compass of an extraordinary life in a few Oxford shire acres. 'Richard Holmes provides a truly fresh interpretation of the great man...Holmes's mature and wise portrait is studded with facts about the period and episodes in Churchill's life that amuse, engage and entice. The author's eye for the telling detail, as well as his deep immersion in all the relevant archives, raises this book far above the common ruck of Churchilliana' - Andrew Roberts. 'This supremely skillful military historian achieves a freshness of approach that makes Churchill hard to put down' - Max Hastings, "Mail on Sunday".

About this title

About the Author:

Richard Holmes is Professor of Military and Security Studies at Cranfield University and the Royal Military College of Science in Britain. He is the author of numerous books, and is the general editor of The Oxford Companion to Military History. He lives in Hampshire, England.

From Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. A 2002 BBC poll established Churchill as history's greatest Briton. Leading British military historian Holmes offers not a biography but an interpretation of the man, one that highlights the ironic fact that the social and political order Churchill defended has virtually disappeared. His Churchill was an unquiet spirit; Holmes describes him as spinning from crisis to crisis for most of his life, gaining experience and wisdom the hard way: helping to commit an unprepared Britain to war in 1914; forging '20s economic policies that left later governments unable to undertake the military buildup Churchill then demanded; failing to maintain Britain's position as a great power after WWII. Both before and after that war, Churchill, Holmes shows, devoted his considerable talent as a historian to misrepresenting the historical record to his advantage. But in 1940 Winston Churchill was able to define his and Britain's century in battle against the Nazis, and, for Holmes, that has been enough to secure his greatness. Holmes has no use for the revisionist argument that Britain was best advised to compromise in the crucial summer of 1940. Instead he demonstrates that Churchill's eloquence, courage and honor left an unforgettable legacy to the British people, and to free men and women everywhere. Holmes similarly demolishes charges that Churchill was a racist and a warmonger. He presents a man truly larger than life. (June)
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About this edition

• Publisher: BBC Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0563493348
• ISBN 13: 9780563493341
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464