Waterstones Winston Churchill Reporting
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Price: £25.00
Brand: Waterstones
Description: Long before his finest hour as Britain's wartime leader, Winston Churchill emerged on the world stage as a brazen foreign correspondent, covering wars of empire in Cuba, India, the Sudan, and South Africa. In those far-flung corners of the world, reporting from the front lines between 1895 and 1900, Churchill mastered his celebrated command of language and formed strong opinions about war. He thought little of his own personal safety, so convinced was he of his destiny, jumping at any chance to be where bullets flew and canons roared. I have faith in my star- that I am intended to do something in the world, he wrote to his mother at the age of twenty-three before heading into battle. Based on his private letters and war reportage, Winston Churchill Reporting intertwines young Winston's daring exploits in combat, adventures in distant corners of the globe, and rise as a major literary talent- experiences that shaped the world leader he was to become.
Category: Books
Merchant: Waterstones
Product ID: 9780306823817
Delivery cost: 0.00
ISBN: 9780306823817
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Author: Number13
Rating: 5
Review: That title is author Simon Read’s description of his true tale of the young Winston Churchill; ambitious, recklessly brave and wielding both pen and weapons, he goes looking for fame, excitement and money – and finds all three as a combination of war correspondent, Imperial army officer and Victorian adventurer. This book is a gripping retelling of the story of Churchill in his twenties, drawing on his books, the newspaper articles that first made his name, personal letters and other sources to create an account rich in research and detail and told with the pace and style of a riveting historical novel – though neither Churchill nor the book’s author tries to hide the brutal realities of war. I knew of this period of Churchill’s life mostly from excerpts from his books and the (generally short) early sections of various biographies, which are understandably more interested in his long political career. If you have read extensively on his early years, then obviously you won’t learn as many new details as I did from reading this book, but reading it should still be recommended. If Churchill had only been one more adventure-seeker on the frontiers of the British and Spanish empires, this book would still be a fascinating read with its vivid depiction of distant places, peoples and events in the last years of the Victorian century. But given his pivotal place in history, this is more than simply an absorbing journey through the life of a daring young journalist and officer picking up a taste for Cuban cigars and whisky on his travels. Churchill planned his path to becoming a Member of Parliament (at least) through a deliberate decision to use his army career to seek out danger, face it and tell the widest possible readership about it in the most exciting possible style. To the modern reader it seems an unusual and highly risky career path and, judging by the opposition we learn he faced from some senior officers (including General Kitchener, no less), his publicity-seeking was strongly disapproved of in some quarters. But it worked! The story told here of how Churchill and his energetic mother repeatedly used every contact and social connection to get him to the scene of the next action, with newspaper deals already done and the next book already planned, is worth reading in itself. And beyond that, through Cuba, the Northwest Frontier, the Sudan and South Africa there is the central story of Churchill’s developing attitudes to war, humanity and the world which would stay with him for the rest of his long life, sometimes for worse but usually for better – especially when, in 1940, it mattered most of all. On the debit side, his privileged Imperial officer’s view of India as a country of servants, the Raj, polo and warlike frontier tribes left him with fixed ideas on colonialism, ideas that were already far out of date even by the 1930s and helped send him into the political wilderness for a decade. But on the credit side, his determination equally never to back down in the face of an enemy and to treat that enemy with magnanimity (once they were safely defeated) would of course later be of crucial importance, not only in the defeat of Fascism but also in his calls for the rebuilding and swift (and successful) reintegration of free Germany into the European family of nations, a policy he promoted against the instincts of some in Europe at that time. Churchill’s final exploits as a war correspondent were in South Africa during the Second Boer War – a well-known tale but exceptionally well-told here and told in detail, with enough twists and turns to make it read more like a thriller than the life of a British Prime-Minister-to-be. Following his path through the conflict, accompanying British forces as an uneasy blend of journalist and combatant, it’s sometimes hard to be sure exactly how he saw his own role. The Boer authorities were quite sure – they described him as “dangerous for our war”. The massive public interest generated by his South African activities, capture and subsequent escape provided the final boost he needed to edge his way, as a Conservative, into the formerly Liberal parliamentary seat of Oldham. One of the mine workers who helped him on his escape was an Oldham man and that man’s wife was in the crowd when Churchill addressed an election rally, giving him yet more publicity, by pure chance. Possibly Churchill would have called it Destiny! This book is an extraordinary real-life adventure story told with style and an excellent read for anyone interested in that extraordinary man. 5* (There are 8 pages of photographs, 5 basic maps, a Bibliography, extensive reference Notes for each chapter, and an Index.)
Author: Massengale
Rating: 2
Review: The title of this book would lead one to believe it contained significant excerpts from Churchill's reporting career. NOT SO! There are VERY few examples of Churchill's writing. Couple this with extremely poor organization of the notes (no indication in the text or on the page that there is an applicable notation at the back of the book) and you're left with a VERY poor account of this part of Churchill's life. Save your money.
