The Last Lion, Winston Spencer Churchill; Visions Of Glory: 1874-1932

New York: Laurel Trade Paperback [a Division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.], 1989. Later printing. Trade paperback. Good. The format is approximately 5.375 inches by 8 inches. xv, [3], 973, [1] pages. Maps. Chronology. Illustrations. Source Notes. Select Bibliography. Index. Some cover wear. William Raymond Manchester (April 1, 1922 - June 1, 2004) was an American author, biographer, and historian. He was the author of 18 books which have been translated into over 20 languages. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal and the Abraham Lincoln Literary Award. In 1947, Manchester went to work as a reporter for The Baltimore Sun, where he met journalist H. L. Mencken, who became his friend and mentor, and also became the subject of Manchester's master's thesis and first book, Disturber of the Peace. The biography, published in 1951, profiles Mencken, the self-described "conservative anarchist" who made his mark as a writer, editor, and political pundit in the 1920s. Manchester's wartime experiences formed the basis for his very personal account of the Pacific Theater, Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War. Manchester also wrote of World War II in several other books, including a three-part biography, The Last Lion, of Winston Churchill. Manchester also wrote a biography of General Douglas MacArthur, American Caesar. His best-selling book, The Death of a President (1967), is a detailed account of the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy, who had been the subject of an earlier book by Manchester. The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill is a trilogy of biographies covering the life of Winston Churchill. The first two were published in the 1980s by author and historian William Manchester, who died while working on the last volume. However, before his death, Manchester selected Paul Reid to complete it, and the final volume was published in November 2012. Visions of Glory, 1874-1932 was placed on Time magazine's top 100 non-fiction books written in English since 1923. Derived from a newspaper review found on-line:
Winston Churchill applied the same characteristics as a schoolboy that made him a pain in the side of Adolf Hitler. Young Winston was stubborn and defiant in school, even when threatened with failure, expulsion and his father's wrath. Even though a lonely boy, Churchill was Churchill. It is only one of the many insights in William Manchester's epic, "The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill Vol. I: Visions of Glory: 1874-1932." It takes readers from Churchill's birth to the British descendants of the Dukes of Marlborough and an American mom up until middle age and what would be for many public men the end of the career, but for Churchill is the entrance into his "Wilderness" years. Manchester opens with a nearly 50-page preamble on Churchill's life and character. He pens what is arguably the best 50 pages on Churchill's life in its entirety. He captures the multi-faceted essence of Churchill. The history flows into the meeting, courtship and marriage of Winston's parents, then Winston's birth, his lonely childhood seeking the affection of his socially busy and well-connected parents, his hardships upon being sent off to school, showing signs of potential genius though often considered unruly by his school masters. Churchill moves from school to the military where he performs the nearly impossible feat then and now of juggling being a soldier, a journalist and a neophyte politician simultaneously — fighting in, reporting on and politicizing the same military endeavors. Churchill, with help from his mother and her influential male friends, was able to continue doing almost anything he liked.
Churchill became known for his writing, his military adventures and his political stances which could be courageous and outrageous, but often more well reasoned than not. His political career was nearly destroyed during World War I — and many politicians would have never been able to survive, let alone bounce back and thrive. As First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill was blamed then and often still for the massive loss of life in the Dardanelles and Gallipoli. Manchester writes that Churchill should not shoulder the brunt of the blame that it belongs to others or should at least be distributed more equally among others. Churchill lost his position over the British navy. He was shunned. He received command over a small number soldiers in the trenches on the Western Front. He returned to politics.
He survived then began to thrive again. Manchester writes with wit and eloquence. He writes with a novelist's eye, the historian's precision, the analyst's insight and the newspaper columnist's willingness to state opinion.