Status
Call number
Collection
Publication
Description
This history will endure; not only because Sir Winston has written it, but also because of its own inherent virtues - its narrative power, its fine judgment of war and politics, of soldiers and statesmen, and even more because it reflects a tradition of what Englishmen in the hey-day of their empire thought and felt about their country's past. The Daily Telegraph Spanning four volumes and many centuries of history, from Caesar's invasion of Britain to the start of World War I, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples stands as one of Winston Churchill's most magnificent literary works. Begun during Churchill's 'wilderness years' when he was out of government, first published in 1956 after his leadership through the darkest days of World War II had cemented his place in history and completed when Churchill was in his 80s, it remains to this day a compelling and vivid history. The Great Democracies is the fourth and final volume of Churchill's history. Here, Churchill reaches the modern era. For Britain, this was the high Victorian era of Palmerston, Gladstone and Disraeli, an age of free trade and imperialism as the British spread to Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Meanwhile the fledgling republic in America endured the great crisis of the Civil War to take its first steps on the road to becoming the world superpower that endures to this day.… (more)
User reviews
One cannot help but wonder, based on
The last paragraph of the book is instructive in this regard:
"Here is set out a long story of the English-speaking peoples. They are now to become Allies in terrible but victorious wars. And that is not the end. Another phase looms before us, in which alliance will once more be tested and in which its formidable virtues may be to preserve Peace and Freedom. The future is unknowable, but the past should give us hope."
Based on when the book was published, the other "phase" to which he refers can only be the struggle against Communism. I would contend that, were he alive today, he might say the same thing about the war on islamic terrorism.
(8/10)