The Last Lion Volume 1: Winston Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932

The Last Lion Volume 1: Winston Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874-1932 by William Manchester

I had known that William Manchester’s biography of Winston Churchill is widely regarded as the best of the lot.  What I did not know is that this retrospective was three volumes – each at about 1,000 pages.  That’s about 3,000 pages total.  Yikes.  So I approached this first volume with tiptoes and trepidation.  Could I actually make it through 3,000 pages?  Is it even possible to write so much about one person?  Would it keep my interest?

After finishing the first volume, for the most part, the progress report is highly favorable.  This is a very long, detailed account of one of the most celebrated figures of the twentieth century.  Now, when one says “long”, that usually means “too” long, but that really isn’t the case here.  Manchester is simply meticulous, and he doesn’t leave anything out.  It should also be pointed out that this first book covers 58 years of the man’s life, so the 1,000 pages or so can’t really be criticized too heavily for only reasons of excess.

What I found a bit peculiar is that the introduction to this book actually gives a brief (well, semi-brief – I’m guessing about 50 pages.  Since I read an e-book without page numbers, I’m not entirely sure) overview of the man’s entire life.  Why give a synopsis of the entire story right before you begin to actually tell the tale?  Perhaps the justification might be that the masses who are familiar with the man only know that he was the Prime Minister of England during World War II, and the author wanted to let us know that there was so much more to the story.  I didn’t find this cumbersome, yet it did seem a bit unnecessary.

Right after this introduction, he then goes into an….um…another introduction?  (Maybe it was a “forward” or something.  I can’t remember).  In this portion, the author takes another 50 pages or so to describe 19^th century England for the novice reader.  This, in fact, I found very helpful.  Maybe since I’m a citizen of the U.S. and know precious little about England’s varied history.  It was definitely an asset when describing not only all of the arms of the British Empire, but how the English Aristocracy actually functioned, and how it was drastically different that the vast majority of the starving peasants that lived in the fetid streets of London.   Churchill was born into that aristocracy, so it helps the reader digest a lot of the “normal” comings and goings of those relevant to the biography.

So we finally then get to Winston’s early years.  This book describes his parents to basically be a couple of pompous jerks who see their children as a major annoyance.  Winston and brother Jack are quickly sent off to public (similar to what Americans would call “private”) school, and their parents are more concerned with throwing lavish parties then wanting to be bothered with their children.  Winston feels the rejection, yet it never seems to overwhelm him too much.  Again, the forward to the book leads us to believe that this was perhaps a bit more common in the echelons of England’s high society.  Particularly annoying is Winston’s American mother.  I guess I could describe her as “promiscuous” (that sounds nicer than “slut”).  I couldn’t keep up with all of the men she was sleeping with – both while married and after Winston’s father died prematurely.

After school, Winston spends time in the armed forces.  He goes to a lot of places, and is in a lot of battles.  This never bothers him.  He, and all of the youth of England, actually crave the battlefield and have absolutely no fear of dying in combat.  It’s suggested that Churchill is using the battlegrounds as a step to politics, which is where most of the book focuses.

When Churchill does go into politics, this is where I frequently got lost.  It wasn’t that the writing was poor, but I simply don’t know that much about politics in England.  I really couldn’t tell you what a Prime Minister really does, what the relationship is between Parliament and the “Royals”, the difference between the labours and the liberals, nor the difference between the tories and the conservatives.  Let’s just say that I was very relieved that reading an E-book allows you to quickly look up stuff on Wikipedia.  I’ve never had to use a reference site as much as I did when I read this book.

So all of the details are here up until 1932.  A lot of them are good for his career, but a lot more seem bad.  Lots of mistakes are made in the man’s life, and he learned a lot of lessons the hard way.  Sometimes I felt the details were a bit too drawn out (the failed Dardanelles experiment in the First World War comes to mind), yet overall the story flowed very smoothly with all events packed in rather tightly.  

The main thing you have to admire about Churchill was that he was definitely his “own” man.  He never seemed to want to say what the masses wanted to hear, nor say what he was “supposed” to say.  He spoke his mind.  Rather brave for any politician.  So although this caused many problems in his political life, it’s easy to now see, in retrospect, how it was just this attitude that helped England win the Second World War.

I’m looking forward to the next volume – but my brain needs a bit of a break before I plow back into the man’s life.