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Rating: 
Summary: Good-Ol'-Winnie with warts
Review: "History will deal severely with Chamberlain--- I know---because I shall write it"Winston Chruchill wrote that history and won the Nobel prize for it; and so set the formula for all succeeding histories. Second only to securing the safety of his nation Mr. Churchill, historian, essayist, biographer, and critic, had to produce his version first. Of the major personalities of that era Churchill was the only one who wrote; who got his version to the world. Irving's biography shows why Churchill had to write.The book is not for the casual reader. The assumption is that the reader has a few WW2 histories, European geography, and British politics well understood. Irving's sole effort is to sift through the fine details of the accepted history and find contradictions, new events, and additional interpretations of the facts. His book is so packed with detail, all contexturally suspended on a web of assumption and conclusion, that without some background you will miss the astonishing story. Irving is not afraid to surmise given some facts and not afraid to stretch to obvious conclusions, he could be dead wrong but at least he's got it out there. Irving has gone deeper into the details and found both more complicated personalities and events, and having found new and startling information he can interpret them the way he pleases. His Biographies are not flattering, on first take, but by adding new and counter-characteristic details, Irving makes Churchill more real, more fallible, and his accomplishments all the more extraordinary. Irving is not shy of adding a black-eye where the documents support it, and he (Irving) has taken a few slaps for doing so; but only because he is emphatic in relating what he has found, and dares his critics to prove the obverse.Irving is good for us readers of history. You should find the best historical writing at least controversial, if not outrageous. When we all agree on all aspects of every story, history ends, biography ends; Irving becomes the other historian Winston..... Winston Smith. Winston-o-files are going hate this book but all should read it through. Put it up on your shelf next to Gilbert and Manchester. Another book covering the same period from the other side of the Channel is the ignored masterpiece "The Collapse of the Third Republic" by Shirer.
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Summary: Excellent ! Compelling !
Review: A wealth of hardly known facts about Churchill. Really worth its (expensive) price. A must-read for those interested in the end of the British empire.
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Summary: The truth will out
Review: And they were right. David Irving tells a compelling story demonstrating that far from the great statesman view of media and historians, Winston was a drunken compulsive gambler heavily indebted to jewish financial interests, and repaid them by turning Englan against its natural ally Germany, which could and should have destroyed Bolshevism. Recall the "iron curtain" speech? Churchill should know-it was his fault.
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Summary: THANK YOU MISTER IRVING!!
Review: I do share neil camberly's point of view...especialy about the anonymous critic rating 1 star only from many differentes cities... I am looking for volume II of that wonderfull book of David Irving...If anyone heard about a spare one left somewhere, I am willing to take it... Thanks to contact me in returning my mail. I would like to add that thanks to people like mister IRVING, maybe the future generations will have a chance to know the truth about the second world war and the real part that all the nations played and what were their national interests.
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Summary: Revisionist History at it's worse
Review: I feel compelled to speak out against David Irving. I was exposed to far right wing points of view in my youth in Durban South Africa and have heard many of his arguments before. The legality of Nuremburg is questioned and the subsequent fate of world history is blamed on a mysterious cabal of media bosses in America. To imply that Germany in the 1930's was not an aggressive expansionist nation is ridiculous. It was not Churchill's instigation that pushed Hitler into Poland in 1939. Prior to this the West had made every effort to appease Hitler. Even a superficial reading of Mein Kampf demonstrates that Hitler intended to expand eastward at the expense of what he claimed to be sub-human people. True Churchill was no saint , his faults are well known. However he epitomised the spirit of the Anglo-Saxon world during the dark days of 1940. Great Britain and her Empire stood up to a system in which human rights and respect were trampled upon with impunity. Hitler not Stalin unleashed the total war on the Eastern front and ensured that it became the worst conflict known to humanity and cost the lives of millions. We had no choice in 1940 but to resist this. Even if the course of post war history has been disapointing, and I for one do not subscribe to this point of view, the sacrifice was worth it. David Irving is a NAZI apologist
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Summary: A Flawed Historian
Review: I used to be a convinced Irving reader. Convinced that is that he represented an alternative view of history. This book is the one where he really departed from reality. All of Churchill's faults, alcoholism, cronyism, poor financial judgement, are high-lighted. The fact that he saved civilisation as we know it is ignored. The early Nazi leaders biographies and Hitlers War were interesting. I never even picked up on the holocaust denial views in there at the time. One is judged by the company one keeps......inspect the ranks of Irvings defenders nowadays.....This is not rational objective history.
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Summary: Interesting View
Review: Irving is as biased as most writers (he's hardly an "esteemed historian) and he specializes in Nazi apologetics. This book is interesting, if only as an example of Irving's curious personal views. He has dined on his own cooked-up controversy so long, twisting the truth comes naturally. There is always an audience for these "theories" and Irving plays to it like a virtuoso.
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Summary: Superbly written and documented. Fascinating reading.
Review: Irvings original research and writing style combine to make Churchill's War a most enjoyable and thought-provoking read that I found to be intensely humerous and ironic at times. Irving practically chain-linked the words of Joe Kennedy, FDR, Herbert Hoover, Churchill, and a host of others to build paragraph after paragraph of free flowing, engrossing and controversial text. This was the first of Irving's work that I have read but certainly not my last. After reading some criticisms of this book I question whether the same book is being discussed and/or there is some animosity toward this author that is not related to the quality of his work.
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Summary: Great Read!
Review: Mr. Irving devastates the fanciful mythos that is Churchill by going where other WW2 authors fear to tread- to those areas where the truth is revealed! This book is tremendously well researched and tremendously well organized. Irving's critics, as predicted, have stepped forward to discredit this work without offering a shred of evidence to disprove his conclusions. Perhaps they prefer the palatability of myths and legends to truth and accuracy...?
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Summary: Buyers Beware - Discredited "Historian" Alert
Review: When David Irving sued an American college professor for calling him a Holocaust Denier, (so much for free speech), the judge in the case found that Irving was not only a Holocaust Denier, but a liar and falsifier of history, and an anti-Semite.
Irving was found to have consciously mistranslated, selectively edited, and lied. His books belong in the fiction section.
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