My Early Life

Rating:
Summary: A "must read" for any fan of Churchill
Review: "My Early Life" is an excellent book. This work is the first in which Winston Churchill offers details on his escape from captivity at the hands of the Boers in 1899, some thirty years after the fact. In an earlier work, "From London to Ladysmith via Pretoria", Churchill gives a great narrative of his capture and internment during that conflict, but had to leave out many of the details of his escape because of the danger a full account would have posed to those people who had helped him in the successful attempt. "My Early Life" also takes a couple of steps back from the original journalistic accounts Churchill wrote, adds more of the background, and reveals the political and social intrigue that formed and guided British military and social circles when the British Empire was at its peak. The best part of "My Early Life", for anyone who is at all familiar with the recorded speeches of Winston Churchill, is that the writing "sounds" like the man, the sentences flowing with an air of granduer that demonstrate the superb command of the English language which Churchill possessed. This is not an easy book to read, but the persistent reader will be rewarded with some of the highest caliber prose ever put to paper by a soldier turned journalist turned politician. This book is a must read.

Rating:
Summary: A "must read" for any fan of Churchill
Review: "My Early Life" is an excellent book. This work is the first in which Winston Churchill offers details on his escape from captivity at the hands of the Boers in 1899, some thirty years after the fact. In an earlier work, "From London to Ladysmith via Pretoria", Churchill gives a great narrative of his capture and internment during that conflict, but had to leave out many of the details of his escape because of the danger a full account would have posed to those people who had helped him in the successful attempt. "My Early Life" also takes a couple of steps back from the original journalistic accounts Churchill wrote, adds more of the background, and reveals the political and social intrigue that formed and guided British military and social circles when the British Empire was at its peak. The best part of "My Early Life", for anyone who is at all familiar with the recorded speeches of Winston Churchill, is that the writing "sounds" like the man, the sentences flowing with an air of granduer that demonstrate the superb command of the English language which Churchill possessed. This is not an easy book to read, but the persistent reader will be rewarded with some of the highest caliber prose ever put to paper by a soldier turned journalist turned politician. This book is a must read.

Rating:
Summary: A "must read" for any fan of Churchill
Review: "My Early Life" is an excellent book. This work is the first in which Winston Churchill offers details on his escape from captivity at the hands of the Boers in 1899, some thirty years after the fact. In an earlier work, "From London to Ladysmith via Pretoria", Churchill gives a great narrative of his capture and internment during that conflict, but had to leave out many of the details of his escape because of the danger a full account would have posed to those people who had helped him in the successful attempt. "My Early Life" also takes a couple of steps back from the original journalistic accounts Churchill wrote, adds more of the background, and reveals the political and social intrigue that formed and guided British military and social circles when the British Empire was at its peak. The best part of "My Early Life", for anyone who is at all familiar with the recorded speeches of Winston Churchill, is that the writing "sounds" like the man, the sentences flowing with an air of granduer that demonstrate the superb command of the English language which Churchill possessed. This is not an easy book to read, but the persistent reader will be rewarded with some of the highest caliber prose ever put to paper by a soldier turned journalist turned politician. This book is a must read.

Rating:
Summary: Enormously entertaining
Review: Although most of Churchill's huge output of books were written a little too fast (apparently, he had other demands on his time) to endure as classics, in this very personal story of his boyhood and youth his prose is superb. Further, he follows the brilliant strategy of <not> looking back on his younger years with the wisdom of age. He describes the events of his childhood with exactly the same boyish emotions he felt at the time. His account of his struggles with schooling remain justly famous, and there's adventure aplenty in Afghanistan, Cuba, the Sudan, and South Africa. A great book for boys (or former boys), especially ones with large vocabularies. --- Steve Sailer

Rating:
Summary: Get to know Winston Churchill
Review: Anyone who hated school may like this book very much. Churchill was a privileged aristocrat who viewed 'science' and 'democracy' as retrograde developments. And yet, any reader today would be naturally drawn towards the romantic, exciting, exotic picture of an empire that the young winston paints from someone born with common sense, good nature, pride and a hunger to play his part in glorious events.

This book was written by Churchill when he was short of cash - it had to be successful. Also it was written well before he became a world-weary statesman. By so royaly entertaining his readers he betrays himself to us as a pretty down to earth and likeable character - perhaps very different to the complex man he really was, or the very great man he was eventually to become.

One thing strikes me from the book is that Churchill was probably as unforgiving with himself as he was with other people - he comes across as someone with tremendous moral integrity and character. Yet, by the standards of many others he was seen as outspoken, bumptious, obdurate and opinionated, a war monger etc etc.

Progress was never made by reasonable people and this book is a superb way to get to know this mercurial, unorthodox, unlikely hero. It is a story of his coming of age at the turn of the 18th century and is one of those books that all bold adventurous men should perhaps read at some time during their lives.

A fantastic eye witness account of the British empire and the 'larger than life' people behind it.

Rating:
Summary: Get to know Winston Churchill
Review: Anyone who hated school may like this book very much. Churchill was a privileged aristocrat who viewed 'science' and 'democracy' as retrograde developments. And yet, any reader today would be naturally drawn towards the romantic, exciting, exotic picture of an empire that the young winston paints from someone born with common sense, good nature, pride and a hunger to play his part in glorious events.

This book was written by Churchill when he was short of cash - it had to be successful. Also it was written well before he became a world-weary statesman. By so royaly entertaining his readers he betrays himself to us as a pretty down to earth and likeable character - perhaps very different to the complex man he really was, or the very great man he was eventually to become.

One thing strikes me from the book is that Churchill was probably as unforgiving with himself as he was with other people - he comes across as someone with tremendous moral integrity and character. Yet, by the standards of many others he was seen as outspoken, bumptious, obdurate and opinionated, a war monger etc etc.

Progress was never made by reasonable people and this book is a superb way to get to know this mercurial, unorthodox, unlikely hero. It is a story of his coming of age at the turn of the 18th century and is one of those books that all bold adventurous men should perhaps read at some time during their lives.

A fantastic eye witness account of the British empire and the 'larger than life' people behind it.

Rating:
Summary: Quite an amazing book
Review: Biographies are often interesting because the book is well written or because the subject had an extraordinary life. Churchill's autobiography is both. Churchill's early life was quite extraordinary. Using his connections (or more likely, his mother's bed partners), he was able to see service at many of the British Empire's hotspots between 1895 and 1905. He glosses over quite a bit. His mother and father both were somewhat dissolute personages but he presents an idealized portrait of them. But he gives in great detail the excitement that he experienced in India and the Sudan, and of course his daring escape from Boer captivity during the South African War.

And the writing! Churchill was a wonderful writer. Despite his upper class origins, his father and mother blew most of their money. Churchill himself enjoyed high living. So Churchill for most of his life lived a rather hand to mouth existence. His writing and lectures are what paid the bills all those years. So his writing was well crafted and entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: Quite an amazing book
Review: Biographies are often interesting because the book is well written or because the subject had an extraordinary life. Churchill's autobiography is both. Churchill's early life was quite extraordinary. Using his connections (or more likely, his mother's bed partners), he was able to see service at many of the British Empire's hotspots between 1895 and 1905. He glosses over quite a bit. His mother and father both were somewhat dissolute personages but he presents an idealized portrait of them. But he gives in great detail the excitement that he experienced in India and the Sudan, and of course his daring escape from Boer captivity during the South African War.

And the writing! Churchill was a wonderful writer. Despite his upper class origins, his father and mother blew most of their money. Churchill himself enjoyed high living. So Churchill for most of his life lived a rather hand to mouth existence. His writing and lectures are what paid the bills all those years. So his writing was well crafted and entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: Accessible Churchill
Review: Churchill presents us with a short and lively account of his early life, making this one of his more accessible works.

We see it all: nanny-pampered, mother-neglected child; dim-witted schoolboy but top-notch military student; officer and reporter. In fact as a reporter in the Boer war, he worked as what we are calling today (during the Iraqi war) an embedded reporter. So deeply embedded that the Boers made him a POW though he was a non-combatant.

My favourite chapters deal with his schooling. He laughs at himself, poking fun at his younger self's total ineptitude at subjects such as Latin and mathematics, all the while humbly pointing out that he became such a good writer because being perceived as such a dolt by his teaches, the only thing they'd bother teaching him was English.

The accounts of his military life are interesting but are today overshadowed by the first and second world wars, so that I was unfamiliar with the background that led to conflicts in the Soudan or against the Boer. I recommend reading up on the Boer War in a good enclyclopedia.

Througout the book, WSC displays wit and irony. WSC reminds his readers that following the Boer War, the public thought that no more wars would be fought among white people (don't ever expect WSC to be P.C.--he calls a spade a spade) and that World War One came along anyway. Since he was writing before WW2, the intent was clearly to wake his countrymen up to the possibility of future conflict.

Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Churchill & Manchester? A Must Read
Review: For anyone unfamiliar with either Winston Churchill or William Manchester, this book provides a nice introduction to both. Remember the name Manchester, and when you're done with this book, go immediately back to Amazon.com and buy "The Last Lion", both volumes (the third volume is not yet published, alas).

There are many astonishing events in Churchill's life, and one wonders at the extent of self-aggrandizement in this book (certainly you wouldn't expect a politician to be entirely honest!). Nevertheless, if only 1/4 of Churchill's stories were true, it would be more than enough to establish him among the icons of history.

That this work ends on Churchill's (first) rise to public prominence is fitting. It is as if to say that prior to his political ascendency, Churchill's life was his own, and thus worthy of his own gifted commentary. Whereas after he became a public figure, there was really nothing more for him to personally relate (of course, Manchester's anecdotal stories concerning Churchill's bathtime hijinks put the lie to that theory - refer to the Last Lion VII). Not that there isn't plenty of autobiography in Churchill's other works (his history of World War II is rife with personal detail), but the tone is different, and the degree of revelation more subdued.

It is of incalculable benefit that we have access to such a personalized view of the childhood and formation of such a great man. Not that he could be duplicated by applying such remedies to your own children (just add syphalitic father, sexually uninhibited but devoted mother, and healthy dose of latin lessons at exclusive English school).

I must confess that among the many details contained in this book, the one that I find most revealing is Churchill's daring and disastrous gambit during a childhood game of tag (a presage to Forcing the Dardanelles?). This single incident speaks clearly to Churchill's indominatable spirit, incredible daring, and dangerous creativity.