Churchill as Warlord and human being
After finishing this book you will know more about the complex man Churchill really was than most other biographies. The book is the product of excellent research and ability to make sensible and fearless judgments
about character without bias in either direction.
A different look at Churchill
This is a well-written and engaging account of Churchill's life as a soldier and military director. There are surprising details - such as his role as an active defender in the siege of Antwerp during the first World War, and the fact that he was the original inspiration behind the creation of the tank (already well known...) and also of the British airforce (I didn't know that!). His failings as well as his strengths are detailed with laudable good balance. All-in-all an excellent addition to the Churchill canon.
A good read, but overly glorified.
This is a very well written book of Churchill. However much like many other biographies of Churchill, the basic facts of the man's life just don't agree with the authors' final conclusions. Granted D'este does present a very complex picture of the man and his successes and numerous failures. And yet, D'este intentionally ignores the more controversial issues of Churchill's alcoholism, his incessant warmongering, and his inability to learn from his past mistakes. With Churchill and similiar to several other world leaders I could name at the time, it was all about his blinding ambition for power and the forcing of his will upon others, while he constantly refused to accept any responsibility for the consequences of his self-serving actions. With that said, after studying the subject of WWII and the main characters involved for the past thirty years, I am convinced that Great Britain was able to survive WWII in spite of Churchill and not because of him. So in a very real sense, this book gave me a headache with the redundancy of his contrived glorification.
Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill
Carlo D'este has written what must be the definitive account of Winston Churchill from his earliest days of soldiering at Omdurman, the Boer War, WWI and through WWII. He finds Churchill's micro-management style both praiseworthy and damning particularly in the Dardanelles campaign in WWI and British intervention in Greece in WWII. Throughout his life Churchill was not one to easily backdown or be cowed by his betters. Indeed D'este concludes that there was no one else during WWII in British politics who could have rallied Britain at its time of greatest peril from Nazi aggression. Overall D'este has done an outstanding job of writing a balanced account about one of the giants of the 20th century.
Warlord
Buy this book only if you're interested in every caning Churchill received and every train stop he made. The tiny print and the density of trivial information stopped me after the first chapters. Better organization and editing might have made this book valuable.
