A vivid and incisive portrait of Winston Churchill during
wartime from acclaimed historian Max Hastings, Winston’s War
captures the full range of Churchill’s endlessly fascinating
character. At once brilliant and infuriating, self-important and
courageous, Hastings’s Churchill comes brashly to life as never
before.
Beginning in 1940, when popular demand elevated Churchill to the
role of prime minister, and concluding with the end of the war,
Hastings shows us Churchill at his most intrepid and essential,
when, by sheer force of will, he kept Britain from collapsing in
the face of what looked like certain defeat. Later, we see his
significance ebb as the United States enters the war and the
Soviets turn the tide on the Eastern Front. But Churchill, Hastings
reminds us, knew as well as anyone that the war would be dominated
by others, and he managed his relationships with the other Allied
leaders strategically, so as to maintain Britain’s influence and
limit Stalin’s gains.
At the same time, Churchill faced political peril at home, a
situation for which he himself was largely to blame. Hastings shows
how Churchill nearly squandered the miraculous escape of the
British troops at Dunkirk and failed to address fundamental flaws
in the British Army. His tactical inaptitude and departmental
meddling won him few friends in the military, and by 1942, many
were calling for him to cede operational control. Nevertheless,
Churchill managed to exude a public confidence that brought the
nation through the bitter war.
Hastings rejects the traditional Churchill hagiography while
still managing to capture what he calls Churchill’s “appetite for
the fray.” Certain to be a classic, Winston’s War is a riveting
profile of one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth
century.
關於作者:
Max Hastings is the author of more than twenty books, most
recently Retribution. He has served as a foreign correspondent and
as the editor of Britain’s Evening Standard and Daily Telegraph and
has received numerous British Press awards, including Journalist of
the Year in 1982 and Editor of the Year in 1988. He lives outside
London.