Winston Churchill: An Authentic Hero

This short, but very well written biography, aims to capture the subject's character rather than to list every event and accomplishment. Brendon is an elegant and incisive writer, with an eye for exactly the right anecdote or quote to capture the essence of a forceful and often capricious personality. Contrary to expectations, this cursory treatment seems able to portray the subject more vividly than the long tomes where the personality is lost in the background - rather like the manner in which a quick caricature can portray a personality better than a formal portrait. Brendon's longer biography of Eisenhower Ike: Life and Times of Dwight D. Eisenhower is equally good. Both are highly recommended.

Rather than throwing another heavy scholarly tome at the public, Piers Brendon opted for a short portrait of Churchill, the man. In fact, the cover of the British paperback edition (which, unfortunately, you can not see here) tells the whole story: on the top half is a photograph of a youthful Churchill flaunting an urchin's grin under a flamboyant top hat; on the bottom half is a photograph of Churchill in his sixties squinting against the sun while he inspected a battlefield during WW II.Churchill was a complex personality, "yet the essence of Churchill, which this book has attempted to explore and to celebrate, was his heightened vitality, the terrific immediacy of his existence. Life as it was ordinarily lived was too tame for him: he needed the stimulus of constant adventure." He was grandiose, yet had self-deprecating charm; he could remark that although we are all worms he really believed himself to be a glow-worm.Graced with a benign character and a sunny disposition, he nevertheless displayed an authoritarian bent ("All I wanted was compliance with my wishes after reasonable discussion") and was driven by an unabashed, egotistical ambition. His disregard for hierarchies and naval tradition was legendary: "Don't talk to me about naval tradition," was his famous reply, "it is nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash."Churchill's greatest gift was his "alchemical power with words: by means of fiery eloquence he could transmute the dross of disaster into the gold of triumph." Rhetoric was "the most powerful weapon in his armoury and he took immense trouble with it, constantly practicing: 'Winston leads general conversation on the hearth rug addressing himself in the looking glass - a sympathetic and admiring audience.'" His demagogic skills and self-advertising flair served Britain well at a time when the Nazi tanks seemed unstoppable: "Churchill's well nigh miraculous achievement during the dire summer months of 1940 was to convert the nation to a mystical faith in its own providential destiny. ... Courage is as contagious as cowardice and Churchill infected everyone with his heedless fortitude." Churchill was a sanguine choleric, if ever there was one. His "scowling sulks made his moods of sunny cheerfulness all the brighter. His charm compensated for his rudeness; his loyalty redeemed his cruelty. His fundamental kindness of heart and generosity of spirit were never altogether obscured by perennial egotism and fleeting rages." Nobody could say of his intellectual arrogance that his brains went to his head: "When the mood took him he bubbled with good humour. He never stood on his dignity. He had once amazed guests by getting down on all fours under the Chartwell dining-room table and shaking swimming-pool water out of his ears like a dog."Churchill could be charming and demanding, as it suited him. After he had the US safely in his camp, he rejected the advice to approach America cautiously with the comment "Oh! That is the way we talked to