military

Most people have the feeling that Winston Churchill won a nobel prize. Since Churchill was the 1st minister of the United Kingdom during most of the Second World War, it's natural for them to think CHurchill won the Nobel Peace Prize for achievements during the war. That's not the truth. Churchill won the Nobel Prize for LITERATURE in 1953, accordingly to the Scandinavian institution, "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values".

Among the books that granted Churchill the Nobel Prize is "The second world war". This book is a history lesson about WWII. Even if it's more than 1000 pages in length, it's never a tedious reading, even if it becomes very dense at some parts.

Churchill was always in the center of the war, as a politician. "The second world war" is a book about the War's politics. All the motives and reasons behind the war are toroughly explained, as well as all the war's developments during the toughest six years in the history of humanity.

Being a book mostly about politics, I felt at some times the lack of battle field scenes; being a book mostly about the war in Europe and northern Africa, I felt I wanted more information about the war in the Pacific. But it's undertandable that "The second world war" doesn't go very deep in these subjects, because Churchill writes mostly about what he was part of, so much so that in Brazil the title of this book is "Memoirs of the second world war". And that's what it is: Churchill's memories of what he was part of during WWII.

So, it's not a complete book about the war, and it couldn't possibly be, but it's a fundamental book for readers to understand the war in a political way. For a complete understanding of other aspects of the war, there are other books that should also be read, like Cornelius Ryan's "The longest day", "A bridge too far", or Stephen Ambrose's books, just to name a few of the most popular.

Now I'm looking forward to reading Churchill's books on the First World war.

Grade 9.1/10

A masterpiece of world literature. Anyone remotely interested in twentieth century history should read Churchill's accounts of WWI and WWII.

Churchill begins the Second World War by noting that the "volumes [are] a continuation of the story of the First World War...set out in The World Crisis, The Eastern Front, and The Aftermath". As great as the Second World War is in scope and insight, it is even greater when considered together with his treatment of WWI. It is a pity his account of WWI and its aftermath are currently no longer in print, available only through university libraries and sellers of rare books (if any publishers are reading, I beg them to consider republishing his accounts of WWI).

Churchill's chronicles of WWI and WWII are a invaluable account of the incomprehensible turmoil that characterized the first half of the 20th century. The scope of this literary achievement is made even more precious and amazing when one considers the firsthand perspective given by Churchill. During both wars, he occupied important government roles, putting him in a unique position to chronicle events during that era. The World Crisis, The Eastern Front, The Aftermath, and the volumes of the Second World War are personal memoirs as much as monumental histories. They are compelling on many levels, the stories of many through one.

It amazes me that this collection of wartime memoirs continues to be held up as an example of Great History & Great Literature. I hope the tendency to do so becomes less & less commonplace as a new generation that never knew Churchill comes to the fore. It seems as though two or three generations, both British and American, becames members of the First Church of Saint Winston, and Saint Winston casts a long shadow. To question his competence or motives was simply taboo for years & years. Only recently have scholars dared to impugn Churchill's memory.

As to the veracity of the history, I can only say that it is as good as most memoirs. Of course, memoirs by their very nature are suspect & unreliable as historical source material, and Churchill is no more guilty of spinning history than have been countless other writers of memoirs. Churchill made an entire career out promoting himself through writing in the years leading up to his stint with the Admirality. Later, he would devote his energies to dressing up his late father's reputation for posterity in a wholly unobjective biography/hagiography, and then put his own unique spin on Britain's role in winning World War II (which was of course, Churchill tells us, due to his own great leadership).

Suffice it to say, reading these books is essential to any serious study of World War II, but only in concert with other, more objective works. However, anyone who thinks this is great writing has to be out of his mind! For those who don't know, Churchill wrote exactly like he delivered speeches in Parliament as a young man. Parliamentary speaking during the late Victorian & Edwardian eras was something of an art form, which very much emphasized style over substance. The ability to expound at length, displaying mastery over the language, could make or break the oratorical career of a young MP. Whether or not you were actually saying anything substantial was truly beside the point; Churchill embraced this approach and adhered to it for the rest of his days, both in his speeches and his writings. Why describe an event in one page when you can just as easily do it in ten pages, asks Sir Winston. His prose flows effortlessly, page after page after page, not a grammatical error to be found. It is written beautifully, but it is not beautiful writing --- it is simply self-indulgence. Personally, I find his rather prolix stylings to be hard to endure, but I guess (for the time being) I am in the minority. I guess we will see how things change in the next twenty years or so.