Volume 30, Number 17 · November 10, 1983
Picking Up the Pieces
By Norman Stone
Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939-1941
by Martin Gilbert
Houghton Mifflin, 1,308 pp., $40.00
The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill Volume I: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932
by William Manchester
Little, Brown, 973 pp., $25.00
Winston Churchill's World View: Statesmanship and Power
by Kenneth W. Thompson
Louisiana State University Press, 364 pp., $25.00
Ten years after the end of the First World War, there was a sudden, powerful wave of antiwar literature. Nothing comparable has been seen, even a generation after the end of the Second World War. No one, knowing the facts of Hitler's death camps, could dissent from A.J.P. Taylor's judgment that it had been 'a good war.' For Great Britian, it was also far less expensive in lives than its predecessor: in this respect, the fall of France was a blessing in disguise, for, their 'finest hour' of 1940-1941 apart, the British could retire to their island and let subsequent, powerful allies take on most of the fighting. Their role in the war had something of a Hollywood flavor to it: romantic attitudes were struck while American money hired Russian extras to be shot at.
Review, 3086 words
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