The Last Lion; Winston Spencer Churchill Alone 1932-1940

Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown and Company, 1988. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Good. xxvi, 756, [2] pages. Chronology is printed on the endpapers. Illustrations. Maps. Author's Note. Source Notes. Index. DJ has some wear and soiling. This is the second volume in William Manchester's projected three-volume biography of Winston Churchill. In this book, William Manchester challenges the assumption that Churchill's finest hour was as a wartime leader. During the years 1932-1940, he was tested as few men are. Pursued by creditors---at one point he had to put up his home for sale---he remained solvent only by writing an extraordinary number of books and magazine articles. He was disowned by his own party, dismissed by the BBC and Fleet Street and the social and political establishments as a warmonger, and twice nearly lost his seat in Parliament. Churchill stood almost alone against Nazi aggression and the British and French pusillanimous policy of appeasement. Despite his personal and political troubles, Churchill managed to assemble a vast, underground intelligence network--both within the British government and on the Continent--which provided him with more complete and accurate information on Germany's rearmament than the government was able to gather. William Raymond Manchester (April 1, 1922 - June 1, 2004) was an American author, biographer, and historian. He was the author of 18 books which have been translated into over 20 languages.[3] He was awarded the National Humanities Medal and the Abraham Lincoln Literary Award. In this volume, we witness the war within, before the colossal war to come. Yet despite his personal and political troubles, Churchill managed to assemble a vast, underground intelligence network-both within the British government and on the continent-which provided him with more complete and accurate information on Germany than the British government. Recognizing the horrifying truth, Churchill stood almost alone against Nazi aggression and the sordid British and French policy of appeasement. Manchester's luminous portrait never loses sight of Churchill the man-a man with limitations, especially his callousness toward others and his recklessness; but also a man whose vision was global and whose courage was boundless. Here is Churchill as a light in the approaching darkness, readying himself for the terrible stand to come. Derived from a Kirkus review: Sympathetically portrayed here as "the last of England's great Victorian statesmen" for his staunch defense of the empire and its values, Churchill did not beweep his outcast state. Though a parliamentary backbencher without ministerial portfolio, the sometime insider managed to stay remarkably well informed on Germany's secret rearmament and its territorial ambitions throughout the 1930's. Churchill spoke out forcefully in the House of Commons and wrote scores of articles against Hitler and the Nazi threat. Until the eleventh hour, though, he was a prophet largely without honor in his own country-and party. With anguished memories of the nation's WW I losses, the ruling Conservatives made appeasement a keystone of British foreign policy. But, while devoting detailed attention to where and how Churchill's contemporaries went wrong, Manchester does not overlook his subject's faults. For instance, Churchill's preparedness campaign suffered a serious setback when -with more loyalty than judgment-he espoused the cause of Edward VIII during the abdication crisis. Nor can Churchill's relationships with his children-notably, Randolph and Sarah-be deemed much of a success. On balance, of course, there were decidedly more credits than debits to his account during the gathering storm, and he became the moral equivalent of a consensus choice for Prime Minister after the onset of WW II. Manchester closes on a triumphant note: the May 19, 1940, radio address in which Churchill enjoined the British to brace for battle and "their finest hour." An eloquent and evenhanded appreciation.