The best biography of this “biographer” (who accomplished many things in addition to writing in his 90 years) is William Manchester’s 3-volume The Last Lion.
For inspiration we can look to the past toward outsized figures such as Churchill, of whom Isaiah Berlin wrote in his marvelous appraisal:Ĭhurchill’s dominant category, the single, central, organizing principle of his moral and intellectual universe, is a historical imagination so strong, so comprehensive, as to encase the whole of the present and the whole of the future in the framework of a rich and multicoloured past.Ĭhurchill reached back 200 years before the nineteenth century to which he was native into further recesses of English history to craft a biography of his own ancestor, the First Duke of Marlborough, which, with his other works, earned him a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953. Why this is The BEST: Poor and limited political imagination plagues leaders of our era. Churchill learns from and builds upon that defeat, ultimately coming to the pinnacle of power in the spring of 1940 as Nazi bombers threaten the very existence of Great Britain. Compelled by the memory of his genetic and spiritual English forebears, Churchill strives to lead boldly in the turbulent times of the Great War, but is ultimately sacked as First Lord of the Admiralty in the aftermath of Gallipoli.
Summary: In this biography of Winston Churchill, William Manchester constructs the man, his worldview, and his drives with captivating detail and breathtaking immediacy. The BEST: “The Last Lion” by William Manchester
0 kommentar(er)
