Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert

Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert is the authoritative biography of Sir Winston Churchill. This book is so long and Churchill's story so robust, it's hard to know where to start with this review. Churchill truly was a phenom and a world leader in a way that not many people have been since. The biggest theme in this book was that Churchill was relentlessly eager, lively, and prescient. 

Starting in childhood with his foundation, Churchill grew up kind of a sad little boy; he missed his parents and when he was sent off to boarding school he wrote them "you must be happy without me" (p8). He was scarred by the early loss of his father, a significant political figure in his own right, and was quite close to his mother, an American aristocrat. Much of Churchill's early success from childhood to his early career can be accredited to his own grit and determination as well as the support of his mother, Lady Randolph. It seems like Churchill's personality and drive was heavily informed by a sense that he had to prove his worth to his parents and he felt sort of neglected. This made him eager and driven, working without pause from bed at all hours until the end of his life. 

Additionally, Churchill was lively and energetic. He lived to 90 years old - a long time by any standard - and lived a lot of life in those 90 years. Churchill was an adventure seeker- was a prisoner of war eager to keep going back to the front and a highly successful author in the meantime. He saw battle in the colonial empire in India, South Africa and then later in WWI and WWII. Churchill was a venturesome aristocrat whose parents traveled frequently as a child and he later did the same, gallivanting and painting around Europe, the British Isles, political trips to the USA, Canada, and Russia. He was shaped by the time; an imperialist power broker eager to get in on and stay in the action until the very last days when he was in his eighties. In this way, his story reminded me of former President Joe Biden- someone who made major policy reforms but stayed in power after his advisers recommended retirement.

Finally, a major theme of this book is the veneration of Churchill as prescient. While a liberal, he was far ahead of his time in establishing a minimum wage and a right to a break while working in the Mines Eight Hours Bill. Later, as a Conservative, the party in which he spent most of his career, he invented tanks, predicted the pace of WWI, foresaw the critical importance of air power in the coming wars, and identified specific battles to come years in advance. He was highly strategic and tuned into the world around him in nearly every way. The best example of a wise investment by his government was the cypher by which the UK decrypted German messages. Without that, they may have lost the war. Churchill deserves the credit given here as his predictions were astoundingly accurate and far reaching. 

Overall, this biography of Churchill was a major challenge to read. It probably took me the longest of any book in a long time, going day by day in Churchill's activities. Unless you're really passionate about Churchill, I wouldn't recommend it. 

Miscellaneous quotes & facts - 

"Take a reasonable position & argue it persistently" (p162)

"You have only to endure to conquer. You have only to persevere to save yourselves, and to save all those who rely upon you," (p279). 

"Things never turn out as well as you expect them, it is also true they never turn out as badly" (p343)

"To be great, one's actions must be able to be understood by simple people," (p359) a quote from Clementine

Germany held an election in which only the Nazi Party was allowed to canvass, so they won 95% of the vote and he later ordered the murder of his senior rivals in the Nazi Party (p523, 529).

Churchill's important criticism of the neutral states: "Each one hopes that if it feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. They all hoped that the storm would pass before their turn comes to be devoured," (p632). 

"There never was a war in all history easier to prevent by timely action than [WWII]," (p867). 

Questions to Italy about fascism:

"1) Is there the right to free expression of opinion and of opposition and criticism of the Government of the day? Have the people the right to turn out a Government of which they disapprove, and are constitutional means provided by which they can make their will apparent? 

2) Are their courts of justice free from violence by the Executive and from threats of mob violence, and free of all association with particular political parties? Will these courts administer open and well-established laws which are associated in the human mind with the broad principles of decency and justice? 

3) Will there be fair play for poor as well as for rich, for private persons as well as Government officials? 

4) Will the rights of the individual, subject to his duties to the State, be maintained and asserted and exalted? 

5) Is the ordinary peasant or workman, who is earning a living by daily toil and trying to bring up a family, free from the fear that some grim police organisation under the control of a single Party like the Gestapo, started by the Nazi and Fascist Parties, will tap him on the shoulder and pack him off without fair or open trial to bondage or ill-treatment?" (p789,790)

I picked this book up because Winston Churchill is arguably one of the most significant figures of the last 150 years. Separately from the Churchill part of this, this book also made me realize I really don't know much detail about WWII, so I'm going to work on that this year. It was interesting to contextualize Indian Independence and Mahatma Ghandi, the independence of Myanmar/Burma, independence of South Africa, etc, with Churchill and the world wars. It is also crazy how much political mistakes were made - the administration immediately prior to and even during the beginning of WWII was defunding their military, per the advice of Lord Chamberlain (p513). I wonder how many Londoners could have been saved had there been more adequate air power available. I wouldn't recommend this book to other people but I do want to read more about WWII now.