Churchill's War Volume II: Triumph in Adversity

Rating:
Summary: Not to be believed
Review: Amazon does a disservice by quoting, above, a comment by Lord Justice Gray. This comment is taken out of context. Mr Justice Gray was the presiding judge in a lawsuit brought by David Irving in an effort to silence his critics, notably Proffessor Deborah Lipstadt. Far from praising Irving, Mr Justice Gray's decision was a stinging condemnation of Irving as a liar, a fraud, and a disreputable historian.

In handing Irving this major defeat, Mr Justice Gray quoted from a report prepared for the defense by historian Richard Evans. Here is what Evans had to say about Irving as an historian:

"An examination of Irving's own work, for example with reference to the origins of such instances of Nazi antisemitism as he is prepared to concede actually did happen, or the statistical calculation of the number of German civilians killed in the Allied bombing raid on Dresden in February 1945, confirms that he shares the principal historical methods of Holocaust denial. These include especially skewing and manipulation of documents, intentional suppression of evidence, conscious falsification of statistics, reliance on sources known to be unreliable if they fit the argument in hand, unjustified dismissal of reliable sources if they do not, false attribution of conclusions to books and sources which in fact say the opposite, knowing mistranslation of German sources and use of known mistranslations when this suits the argument, and deliberate misconstrual or even invention of the historical record."

"Churchill's War" has been shunned by reputable historians.

Rating:
Summary: Times Change
Review: Author Irving wrote a significant work on the Allied destruction of the undefended Saxon museum city of Dresden in 1945. It was well-researched and carefullly written. That was a long time ago and Irving, who has churned out many other books in the meantime, has never lived up to his initial promise. The Churchill books are thinly written and display the author's animosity towards his subject on every page. His works on Adolf Hitler and his people, on the other hand, glow with unfeigned appreciation and praise. A good historian, if he is worth the title, should write with objectivity and not to a preconceived idea. In all of Irving's books one can find signs of considerable research and this alone is their primary worth. Irving has been able, in years past, to locate and utilize many hitherto obscure diaries and letters. However, that having been said, what Irving does with this information is quite another matter. For a researcher and persons possessing in-depth knowledge of Irving's subject, these books, including the ones now under review, have considerable merit. For those newly arrived at the subject of 20th Century political history, the Irving books should be taken with much greater care. Irving initially denounced the notorious fake "Hitler Diaries" and then, seeing that they were being accepted by the British media, reversed himself and proclaimed them to be absolutely genuine. It has been said that Irving was the first person to call these documents fake and the last to authenticate them. The Churchill books have much of valuable technical interest in them but precious little objectivity.

Rating:
Summary: Discredited "Historian" strikes again
Review: David Irving is, in Judge Grey's words, "a falsifier of history." That alone should be enough to place this, and Irving's other books, permanently in the fiction section.

Rating:
Summary: Times Change
Review: If you want to know about WWII, first hand from the Brits side (every country has a side), this is the book!
I have read and reread WSC's "Second World War," which left out so much.
Get also Irvings "HITLER'S WAR," to find out what Hitler knew and when he knew it.
"Hitler's War" and "Churchill's War" (so far two volumes) illuminate the war as no one else has done.
Every book by David Irving is a thoroughly researched work without peer.
You will not be disappointed in any Irving book!

Rating:
Summary: Much Ado About Nothing
Review: This is a beautifully printed work with an eye-catching cover but from a historian's viewpoint, filled with information that just simply cannot be checked out. It is plainly evident that the author does not like his subject and this dislike is evident on every page. Churchill was a great, if often badly flawed, leader of wartime Britain and this book is not balanced in any sense at all. This is little more than a ... polemic. One ought, at the very least,to damn with faint praise.

Rating:
Summary: Exercise your own judgement
Review: This is the second part of Irving's Churchill 'biography'. It is fascinating reading, but tends not to be a easy a read as his first volume. The fact that Irving is not an admirer of his subject is clearly evident, but it seems that only people outside the UK have this uncritical mythic view of Churchill that certainly does not stand up to reality. Personally I find Irving's view of Churchill to be refreshng and probably the most truthful version of the man thats out there to be read. Churchill is painted as an intelligent, uncompromising and rather ruthless individual on one hand and sympathethic, understanding and somewhat noble gentleman on the other. This book is far more ballenced than the worthless and grovelling 'biography' that Martin Gilbert wrote.
Forget all the nonsense and hyperbole that surrounds Irving and his enforced labelling and read the book, in fact I would urge eveybody to read any Irving book and then make up your own mind and not be swayed by the biased opinions of other people.