I know almost nothing about Winston Churchill, and I’m looking for a good one-volume biography. Tons of praise have been heaped on “Churchill” by Roy Jenkisn and “Churchill: A Study in Greatness”
by Geoffrey Best. Anyone read both? Which is better?
I have nothing but praise for The Last Lion, by William Manchester (two volumes, covering birth-1932 and 1932-1940; a third volume was promised but has not yet reached print AFAIK). He in turn has a great deal of respect for the official biography by Martin Gilbert, which I enjoyed but which was not as captivating as the Manchester. I’ve seen good things about the Jenkins book but have not read it myself.
But don’t miss reading his own writing: the six-volume History of the Second World War and the History of the English-Speaking Peoples (four volumes, with a one-volume abridgement) are both excellent – quirky in their emphases, but nearly always captivating reading.
If you want to get a quick start on Churchill, John Keegan’s entry in the excellent Penguin Lives series is extremely short but fun to read. It provides a good balanced, but generally laudatory, commentary on Churchill’s achievements.
Discussions of the relative merits of books, even non-fiction, usually do best in Cafe Society, so I’ll move this thread over that way.
I believe Manchester announced some time ago that he’d abandoned the project due to declining health.
Note that Gilbert has both co-written (Randolph, the son, started it) the vast official life, which is one of the longest biographies in the language, and a more recent single-volume summary.
In addition to the excellent books mentioned above try out his own autobiography: My Early Life which covers his childhood and youth till about his mid-20’s. It’s beautifully written, has some exciting stories about Churchill’s adventures as a solider and provides a lot of insight into both the man and the Victorian aristocratic world from which he came.
bonzer is correct, Polycarp. Earlier this year Manchester announced that after his stroke, he could no longer concentrate enough to write the third volume of The Last Lion. Which is quite regrettable, since the first two volumes were very enjoyable.
Thanks for the bad news, Bonzer and Narile.