Churchill roy jenkins

Roy Jenkins' biography of Winston Churchill looks intimidating: clocking in at over 900 pages, and with no breaks contained within chapters, it is a serious read. Fortunately, its subject is one of the most well-known and largest characters of the 20th century. Churchill led such a long (he lived to be 90) and interesting life that one would seriously have to question if a book written about his life could be dull, despite the best efforts of the author to make it so. Fortunately, Jenkins does not attempt to do that, and instead employs full biographical treatment of Churchill, making sure to tally all of the warts and the glory so that Churchill is alive from beginning to end (one pleasant aspect of this book is that, on every other page, Jenkins has the year noted unobtrusively up at the top so the reader always knows exactly what year(s) the storyline is in).

Having said that, the first two hundred pages or so are nothing great. In fact, at times they can be a bit tedious as Jenkins mentions so many names that my head quickly began spinning. There were too many Dukes, Earls, Sirs and their wives and sisters to keep track of, especially for someone who has no particular inclination to become familiar with British royalty. Throw in the many colleagues and friends that Churchill had and I quickly had a lot of people I was trying to juggle around in my small mind. I didn't quite get the feeling that Jenkins was intentionally trying to overload the reader with all of these names, but it did happen nonetheless. And given the life that Churchill led – extraordinary by anyone's standards – the names keep coming throughout the book, although later it becomes more settled.

Jenkins tightens things up as he gets to the onset of WWI. It really is remarkable to think that Churchill played such large roles in both World Wars. Unfortunately for him, WWI was a disaster that almost wrecked his career as his impetuosity and big mouth got him into trouble. He badly mismanaged the Dardanelles campaign while First Lord of the Admiralty, ultimately losing his job, being demoted, going off to serve half-heartedly in the British Army in France, then wandering around for the next two years or so – half in and half out of decision-making. Churchill definitely did not cover himself in glory during this time frame. He saw little front-line action, thus his war experience was limited. During his brief time at the front, he seemed more concerned with the politics going on back in London than what was happening in France. Sort of an odd position for a person to be in: he certainly did not have to enlist or volunteer for active duty, yet once he was active he seemed somewhat detached from the action.

One area of strength is Jenkins' cogent analysis of Churchill's vast literary works. Had the man been an author and nothing more, he would have been regarded for his prodigious output of words and multi-volume histories and biographies. Jenkins explores how much of these books was actually Churchill himself doing the work (quite a bit, actually, and on some works it was pretty much all him), and how much was a result of the multiple research assistants that he employed (more than he would have ever admitted to, most likely). Jenkins also critiques the works in a fair manner, much like he does Churchill overall. During the 1920s and 30s, writing was Churchill's main mode of making a living, and he did quite well at it. Aside from all of the books, he wrote gobs of articles for numerous London newspapers, and even some American magazines. Jenkins analyzes Churchill's WWI and WWII memoirs, pointing out some inaccuracies and also some of the works' stronger points. He does it in such a way that I neither wanted to rush out and get my own copies so I could read them, nor to think that they are inconsistent and self-serving and thus not worth reading.

Despite how thoroughly Jenkins covers many aspects of Churchill's life, on some important points I think he comes up abruptly short. Churchill and his wife lost a daughter at a very young age to illness. This had to have been one of the most difficult moments in Churchill's long life, if not the most difficult one. Yet Jenkins dispatches it in a single sentence. How can this be? Surely there is something more to write about it: how did it affect Churchill, his wife, their relationship, his outlook on life? Jenkins delves into none of these important topics. I would have much preferred more on this type of difficulty that Churchill faced rather than his political warfare with Neville Chamberlain, Stanley Baldwin, and others. While interesting, it can get tedious at times to read about. And at some point, you want to say: “I get it. They don't get along very well!” Still interesting to read about, but perhaps with a little less volume.

In the same vein, we get precious little about Churchill's relationship with his children. Jenkins seems content to keep making periodic snide swipes at Randolph Churchill. At first I found them amusing, but as they multiplied they seemed to take on more of the character of Jenkins just not liking Churchill's son. This left me wondering if Jenkins, a member of Parliament himself following WWII, tangled with Randolph on his own and thus this was him making clear his dislike of the man. My point here is that these asides did nothing to augment the book, and after awhile in fact they slightly took away from it.

Similarly, Jenkins also throws a few barbs at Americans. In describing Churchill's near fatal encounter with a car in New York City in 1931. On page 443 he notes “...the perverse habit of the Americans of driving on the right.” Perverse? It wasn't offensive or cruel, but it did make me question why he felt the need to put that in the book. I would rather have learned more about many other topics relating to Churchill, than to know that Jenkins disapproves of American traffic flow.

Another area where I found Jenkins to be less clear was in the byzantine world of British politics. While Churchill's battles were covered at length, it seems that Jenkins assumes the reader has some knowledge of early 20th century British politics. For example, it is not clear to me why Herbert Asquith was removed as Prime Minister in 1916. Perhaps it went right over my head. I have a fairly superficial idea, but Jenkins certainly doesn't spell it out, so it left me wondering. Ditto with David Lloyd George in 1922. Again, I am not quite sure why he lost power. Perhaps I am being too picky, but on the one hand I felt like I got deluged with minute details over Churchill's political actions, while on the other hand the big picture items occasionally seemed to be taken for granted that I knew them. Fortunately, the lead-up to WWII and Chamberlain's resignation is not covered in this manner; Jenkins is very detailed here and does a solid job of explaining exactly why, at long last, Churchill was finally named Prime Minister. Incidentally, I think Churchill provides hope for any middle-aged person who thinks that they have not done much with their lives: he did not attain his ultimate goal of becoming PM until age sixty-five, and this after forty years in politics.

The WWII portion of the book, and specifically Churchill's magnificent performance of leadership in 1940, is the highlight of both Churchill's life and Jenkins' work. He does well in bringing to the reader the almost insurmountable pressures and odds stacked against Churchill. How many men or women could have withstood the barrage from Hitler, the squawking at home, and the lack of material support from other countries, like he did? The traits that had caused him so many issues in life and created for him countless enemies were the traits that helped him (and Britain) to persevere through the bleakest period of the war and emerge, while not intact, at least unbowed. Truthfully, throughout most of this book, I found Churchill to be insufferable: I did not like his personality, how he tried to bulldoze over people, his lack of interest in others unless it suited his needs, his willingness to shift around politically to whatever stance most benefited him, and most of all his arrogance. Yet, it is difficult to not acknowledge his greatness as a wartime Prime Minister, and had he not been at the helm at this most critical of all critical moments, it is not inconceivable that German, and not English, might be the language I would be typing in right now. If Britain had not held out against Germany, who knows how much more powerful Hitler would have become. The United States, while in the process of rearming under Franklin Roosevelt, was not yet ready for war. Keep in mind that it took Pearl Harbor to drag a reluctant U.S. into the war, not because of Roosevelt, but because of the strong isolationist mood of the country throughout the 1930s. If Churchill had capitulated in the summer of 1940, like so many wanted him to do – in effect sue for peace, similar to what France had done – our world would almost certainly be radically different today.

Jenkins charts Churchill's second installation as Prime Minister from 1951-1955 as being one of mixed success, where Churchill neither totally embarrassed himself nor lived up to his previous high reputation for leadership. In that one sense he reminded me of Theodore Roosevelt (whom Churchill had met – Roosevelt did not like him): once out of power, both desperately wanted to get back in. While Churchill succeeded at that, his agenda for establishing a working relationship with the Soviet Union never really came close to fruition, and he was reduced to at times clinging to power simply for the sake of power. And after leaving office for the last time, although surviving for another decade, he was really finished as a buoyant, influential figure in world, or even British, politics. Jenkins is largely favorable to Churchill, not sycophantically so, but I wonder if his treatment would not have been better at times had he possessed a more critical eye. Churchill's many faults are laid out, but Jenkins seems to mostly override them by returning to the great things that Churchill accomplished. I think this is a fair view to take, although one could easily make a less conciliatory case against Churchill and still have justification for it. Final verdict: a good, at times very good, book about one of the most towering figures in the 20th century and world history.

Grade: B