Volume 29, Number 12 · July 15, 1982
Excelsior!
By A.J.P. Taylor
Churchill: Young Man in a Hurry, 1874-1915
by Ted Morgan
Simon and Schuster, 607 pp., $22.50
Most men are content with one career. Winson Churchill had half a dozen. Time and again he mastered a different field of politics and rose to a great height. On every occasion except the last his career ended in failure and even on the last occasion he was not sure that he had succeeded. If Churchill had died before the outbreak of the Second World War he would have been written off as a failure—a splendid failure no doubt, but a failure all the same. Churchill's career is fascinating in its achievements and in its setbacks. How did he impress the shrewdest politicians simply by the impact of his personality? And how did he emerge from failure with his reputation undimmed? Was it the sheer impudence of his pretensions—a young man, as Ted Morgan writes, in a hurry?
Review, 1801 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |