Rating: 
Summary: John Lukacs got into the head of Churchill...
Review: as well as Chamberlain, Halifax & Hitler. In this he is more than your average historian. This subject has been trod over before(even by the author). However, if the reader(in this case, the listener) learns something new, then that time is well spent. I did assume that Churchill replacing Chamberlain as prime minister was met with wild acclaim & Chamberlain was in disgrace. Neither of these notions were correct. Churchill had to earn the support of the people & more important the confidence of the war cabinet. Neither of these happened until after Dunkirk. Chamberlain was an important player, even though he was dying. Churchill leaned on him and needed his support for he was still well thought of. I did have more empathy for him than I had previously. Mr. Lukacs brought that to me. Halifax was also a player, but an appeaser much to long. Being sent to America as ambassador was a good move & used his fine skills as a diplomat while keeping him out of Churchill's hair. Hitler disliked Churchill intensely. Many of his plans were predicated on the fact that first, Churchill would never become prime minister & secondly once he was prime minister he wouldn't last. Hitler wanted peace with England. Indeed, he had never wanted war with her in the first place. Churchill would have none of it. But it was not without anguish & second guessing that Churchill decided that if France fell England would go on alone. Hitler stopped short of the channel. This was not merely a stick to his generals & show who was boss. It was also a carrot to England to show he wasn't going to slaughter British & French troops on the beach. Hitler surely knew that his air force could not destroy the B.E.F. from the air. They were suppose to surrender. But instead 340,000 men escaped to fight another day. By the last day of Dunkirk, it was obvious that the planned invasion of England wold never take place. The Axis went on to several more years of sucess but Lukacs contends that this was Hitler's zenith and he would not win out in the end. England did not & could not win the war. The United States & Russia did that. But equally important, in 1940, England did not lose it.
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely First Rate
Review: This is a fascinating book about a subject (Churchill's early days as prime minister and his contest with Halifax over continuing the war) not often covered and never to my mind in such depth. It is first rate history extremely well written. I found it hard to put down, like a mystery by P.D.James.
Rating:
Summary: 5 Days versus 7 Years
Review: John Lukacs dramatically presents the debates that occurred in the British Cabinet during five days at the end of May, 1940. He reveals quite clearly that Winston Churchill faced great opposition from leading Conservatives about whether to pursue the war and indeed whether to regard Hitler as the major menace facing "Western civilization." Lord Halifax, Neville Chamberlain's secretary of state for foreign affairs, was the leader of the group that continued to argue for "appeasement" of Hitler, even as the Nazi dictator had already seized much of Europe.While Churchill argued that Nazism represented a greater danger to the British Empire than Soviet Communism, many leading Conservatives strongly disagreed. Lukacs details why Churchill prevailed. He does so quite masterfully. But the problem with this historical book is that, to some degree, in its presentation of five days, it is rather unhistorical. Lukacs' presentation tends to beg the question of what all these Nazi lovers like Halifax, who held so much power in the 1930s were doing as Hitler re-armed and began his policies of military expansionism. Were they simply dim-witted appeasers trying to avoid war? Or were they active collaborators with Hitler in an illusory effort to pull together all the forces of reaction in Europe to destroy the Soviet Union and Communism and socialism more generally? Lukacs simply does not provide the background to begin to answer these questions. Two good sources that do are: Clement Leibovitz and Alvin Finkel, In Our Time: The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion; and Michael Carley, 1939: The Alliance That Never Was.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful presentation of history
Review: After trudging through Martin Gilbert's Churchill, which is a lackluster cut and paste job of his multi-volume bio series, I learned more about Churchill, parliament, and England during the most important period in its history thanks to this little book. While Gilbert always keeps the "camera" close to Churchill, we never learn what others thought of the great leader. Now, in Lukacs's fine book, not only do we learn about Joe Kennedy's poor opinion of Churchill, we also learn that Elinor Roosevelt had a less than stellar opinion of Winston. The book not only captures the urgency of these important days, we also learn that opinion polls have roots going back to the 40s. Read this slim -- 220 page -- book and learn more about the early days of the war than a lumbering, 800 page bio of the man who convinced England that Hitler was a threat, Stalin was an evil ally, and England would prevail. Time magazine was wrong -- Winston Churchill was the Person of the Century, not Albert Einstein.
Rating:
Summary: A Fascinating Close-Up with an Eye for the Bigger Picture
Review: Anyone with a basic knowledge of the dramatic events of May and June 1940 will have trouble putting this book down. Lukacs's volume is fascinating, and his startling and strong conclusions are based not on speculation but on laborious research in archives, where unpublished papers reveal events of which even those close to Churchill were unaware at the time and which many standard histories do not mention. In addition to the intrinsic interest of the subject, Lukacs possesses a philosophical turn of mind whose thoughtful digressions are always interesting, and a refined sense of composition. Occasionally he reaches too far for an original turn of phrase, as when he says that Hitler thought that he was "astride a great wave" (when means "riding a great wave") or that in late May the British people were "not - yet - annealed to Churchill" (when he means "welded to Churchill"). But catching slight lapses like these are the press's job. Yale University Press is to be praised, however, for allowing Lukacs to have footnotes rather than endnotes: this markedly improves the reading experience. This book would make a wonderful gift for any member of the "great generation."
Rating: 
Summary: A frustrating presentation
Review: Lukacs argues, often effectively, that the period 24-28 May 1940, when the British War Council considered negotiating a peace with Hitler, were the vital days of WWII (when the war was "not lost"). The principals were Churchill and Halifax, with Chamberlin as the key swing vote. The problem with the book is that it keeps veering off to talk about public opinion (although Lukacs demonstrates effectively, early on, that public opinion had no effect on the decision). Lukacs also often expresses forceful opinions without any support (no footnote, no discussion -- just a statement that someone "was wrong" in his opinions). The result is that the Churchill- Halifax debate is muted by trivia.
Rating: 
Summary: Promising concept, poorly written
Review: VERY disappointing book that presents almost no new material to anyone who has read any reasonably complete history of the war. After all, the time covered is only five days...I expected extensive meeting minutes, detailed commentary regarding previously unsuspected political pressures, revelations of military circumstances not previously known, all of which Churchill had to overcome by sheer force of will to keep England in the war. Instead I got an abbreviated and repetitive version of the well known history of the period, some totally laughable "Mass Observation" reports with "pessimism-optimism ratios" (Lukacs can't even get the meaning of the numerical statistics correct on these), and some speculation about what was said during the Churchill-Halifax "walk in the garden" on May 27...about which even Lukacs admits "we have no account". This absolutely minimal material was padded out with super irritating, omniscient history professor stuff, rambling discussion about the structure of the book itself, and endless footnotes that, when they were worthwhile at all, could easily have been integrated with the text. Short as this book is, it would be improved by eliminating about two thirds.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating story; disappointing as a book
Review: There is an excellent story here, and the brevity of the book should ensure a wide readership. Unfortunately, my enjoyment of the narrative was marred by the muddled writing style, and the tone of infallibility which the author assumes. I was also unpleasantly surprised by the number of obvious typographical errors, particularly as the publisher is an university press. Was this book rushed into print prematurely to beat some rival historian mining the same material? No matter. Despite its obvious shortcomings, it presents a fascinating snapshot of a crucial week in the history of the Western world. I suspect this book will rapidly become influential in how we view the beginning of the war. With a good editor and a proof-reader, this book could have been superb.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book.
Review: Lukacs does a good job here. I found the text to be both informative and entertaining. Lukacs focuses upon the relationship between Churchill, Halifax, and Chamberlain. Chamberlain acted as the man-in-the-middle, the fulcrum upon which Churchill and Halifax see-sawed over the question of prolonging the struggle against Nazi Germany. Lukacs sheds a great deal of light (for me) on Neville Chamberlain's critical role in this debate. Much has been written about Chamberlain and the policy of appeasement. History has not been kind, and perhaps for good reason, to Chamberlain. Not much has been written (or at least read by me) about Chamberlain's critical role in the war cabinet after resigining as Prime Minister. It appears that Chamberlain saw (finally), more clearly than Halifax the true nature of Hitler and his evil. As a result, his eventual decision to side with Churchill. Given the fact that Chamberlain was held in very high regard by Tory MPs, Chamberlain's support was critical both to the decision to stay in the war, and to Churchill's status as P.M. Curchill's magnanimous and kindly treatment of Chamberlain, and Chamberlain's decision to support Churchill's efforts to fight to the end, speak volumes about the character of both men. If this had been a work of fiction I would have expected the final debate between Halifax and Churchill to represent an emotional crescendo. Since this is a historical piece, the last deebate ended not with a bang but with a whimper. This is not Lukacs' fault of course. As to the book's structure. I did find the inserts re the Government's morale bureau to be somewhat distracting. I disagree with an earlier reviewer who found the fotnotes to be a distraction. I prefer footnotes to endnotes. This was a well-written book and should be read by anyone with an interest in the period.
Rating:
Summary: merits a sixth star
Review: At no time was Hitler closer to realizing his goal of European domination than in May 1940. One extraordinary man was pincipally responsible for thwarting that ambition: Winston Churchill. The author, John Lukacs, asserts that Great Brtain was incapable of defeating Hitler in 1940. But Britain and Churchill accomplished something just as important: they did not LOSE WWII by descending down the "slippery slope" of accommodation with Hitler. This book demonstrates why, without doubt, Churchill was THE person of the 20th Century.
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