William ManchesterCritiques

This book, second in the trilogy of Winston Churchill s life, could stand alone as a history of the 1930s leading up to WWII. Manchester's pacing is intense, the drama building and building until the German invade France and Churchill finally becomes prime minister. I couldn't put this book down--it's an amazing work of literature as well as of history and biography.

It's been awhile since I read a biography -- typically I eschew them in favor of fiction. And though I confess to a certain level of interest in military history, I had some grave doubts about my ability to get through all 700 pages of this book.

So it surprises me to admit that I enjoyed it. Even more surprising is that it's a real page-turner. Part of this is due to what a fascinating figure Douglas MacArthur was, but mostly it's due to the way that William Manchester heightens the immediacy of everything that happened in MacArthur's life.

Not to say he's overly dramatized it, or even tried to make MacArthur out to be a better person than he was. But it's clear on every page that Manchester finds his subject fascinating, and before you know it, you do too.

It's a great shame that after suffering two strokes, he was unable to finish the third part of a planned three-part biography of Winston Churchill.

Amazing - and long for us slow / distracted readers. It provides detailed insight to the younger Churchill. It's perfect to understand the formative years and wonderful if you like to read about famous children, but not nearly as interesting to me as the events in his life. (Similar to McCullough's disappointing 'Mornings on Horseback' about Teddy Roosevelt.)

Churchill's events were big. My recommendation: go directly to the years of the Boer War, WWI, or the independence movement in India if that interests you. If WWII is your thing, read the 40 page preamble and the remarkable last 18 pages.

At the very least, read the absolutely fabulous first two pages of the preamble. It is an inspiring example of Manchester's writing. Warning: after reading those first two pages you may feel compelled to read the remaining 881.

A lot of great material but not well organized making for a book that was hard to read. The beginning was particularly poor. The middle was almost good but hard to follow. The last chapter was the best. Alas, everyone else in my book club gave up well before then.

The author provided some maps - helpful - but a timeline would've been useful, particularly for the middle chapter during which he was constantly bouncing around the middle ages (and even in to the renaissance) continually. Did he really think I had the entire history of the popes memorized?

I would recommend this only to the most interested in history.

Another great volume in the three volume biography of a great man. On to volume three.

Very good ending to the biography of a flawed but amazing man.

A great book about the early life of a great man. This first of a three book biography takes us from his early youth, through the Great War and up to 1932 and his warnings concerning what he saw happening in Europe. I look forward to starting the second book.

Great book written about the renaissance period. Manchester really tells the story well.

An excellent first installment of the biography. As someone who enjoys knowing the details, it has been a pleasure to listen to this book. While the book is lengthy, it is for good reason. Alongside the normal biographical material, Manchester gives the historical context of Churchill’s life which also helps the reader understand why different people behaved the way in which they did. Overall, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the following two.

This was an engagingly written book, and a very fast read. However, it suffered from a number of issues.

For one, it was too fast, and seemed to hop-scotch around; for instance, the last chapter on Magellan seems to just be tacked on. It seems that half of the the book before the Magellan chapter is bracket with "Durant says, "; Manchester obviously relied very heavily on this one source.

Then, there are logical "errors." I put "errors" in quotes because I am not an expert in Medieval history or the lives of the various figures, but there are a number of places where Manchester will, over the course of a few sentences or a paragraph, say something like, "Commonly, A is labeled as B; but this is not true because C ... Now, certainly A was B, and so..." This may be his writing style, but I found it distracting and it has left me wondering about the veracity of what I read. Consulting Wikipedia, I see that in fact the book did spark controversy for its supposed errors and invalid conclusions, and that it was out of date. Going back to what I noticed, the book was published in 1992 but references very heavily books written between the 1930's and the 1960's (the Durants' series), which presumably itself was based on research from decades earlier...

Sigh.

Reading this very well may have been a waste of time. Check out From "Dawn to Decadence" or "The Civilization of the Middle Ages" The are both longer, but also both very good reads; and I trust them more.

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The Death of a President: November 20 – November 25, 1963 by William Manchester accounts in minute detail the five days when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Mr. Manchester, a published historian, was asked by the Kennedy family to write this book with unprecedented access to interviews, documents, and more.

This is a fantastic book, which tells in engrossing narrative the great American tragedy through impeccable research. The author delivers a magnificent, and riveting account of the five days which changed the nation.

If this wasn’t a history book, I would have thought that The Death of a President by William Manchester is a Shakespearean tragedy.

- President Kennedy – a charismatic king going to the hub of American fascism (Dallas), becoming a legend in a second.

- Jackie Kennedy – the widow, the North Star and moral compass. A representative of glamour, suffering and sorrow.

- Lyndon Johnson – the second in command, being thrusted in an instant from “the most insignificant office that ever the Invention of man contrived or his Imagination conceived”, to unhindered power. Maneuvering and intriguing to consolidate his rule.

- Lee Harvey Oswald – the lone assassin who has been demoted from a central character to a bit player in a drama of his own doing.

Other agencies play supportive roles in this tragedy. The press, the turf wars between government agencies, and the publicity hounds who at times seem to be there for comic relief no man could conceive in fiction.

At times, Mr. Manchester’s adulation of President and Mrs. Kennedy is naïve. However, the book, as a whole, is a superb and authoritative narrative, an account of almost minute-by-minute detail of these five days, as well as the impact on the nation as a whole.

This second volume wasn't quite as entertaining as the first, no boarding school adventures or prison escapes. A very large portion of this book was Winston Churchill repeatedly telling everyone Voldemort was back, and the Ministry of Magic being in denial and smearing his good name. Which was very frustrating to read with hindsight, but at the same time it is easy to imagine that after the horrors of WWI, with 100's of thousands of dead, in muddy trenches where neither army gains a foot of territory for months and years, it would be incomprehensible that any world leader would want to instigate a repeat of that war, and maintaining peace would be so desirable. It was interesting to read, and think about the role of propaganda, Hitler with his, but also the need for pro-war propaganda by the allies to gain support to confront the threat of Hitler.

I listened to the Audible version of this book, and thought the narrator's Churchill impression wasn't as good as the narrator of the first volume, but about halfway through I got used to it

The ending was quite rousing and gave me goosebumps.

Another reviewer posted this article that I thought was interesting. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/magazine/the-fan-who-finished-william-manches...

I thought Paul Reid did a good job finishing up this last volume. This book contains tons of detail on WWII relationships between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, strategy on various fronts, and tidbits of personal details. The military strategy probably was the least engaging part for me, but I did have a lot of aha moments as gaps in my knowledge were filled about how WWII was related to the Cold War, the Korean War, and Vietnam. My favorite part was when Churchill was bathing naked in Florida, circled by a shark, and said that his bulk scared it into deeper water.

One down, two to go. These books have been on my list for a while, but due to their length (41 hours for the first audiobook), I had been hesitant to start. I listened to the Audible version of the book, which was really well narrated.

This book is best described as a general history of political and patrician England from 1874 - 1932 with a focus on the vast detail's of Winston Churchill's life during this time. My favorite parts were the letters between him and his wife Clementine. As a person in which any and every emotion brings tears to my eyes, I loved the tidbit that Churchill was also a cryer. The letters to his parents when he was a young boy were heartbreaking. It is easy to see how other people would have found Churchill during this time both exasperating and loveable, admirable and confounding. Truly his strength was an ability to follow his vision with conviction and determination, but also willing to change his perceptions when new evidence or circumstances were presented -- which is a difficult path to take as a politician in which people want to label you so as to know where you stand.

This is a book by a non-specialist, non-historian written for a wide audience. He states this in his "Author's Note." His depiction of the middle ages, the medieval era of the title, the "Dark Ages" he calls it, is VERY MUCH disputed by historians of the time period. He repeats corny old chestnuts and hoary views in the first part of the book. The bulk of the book, however, is a narrative and scattershot history of the European Renaissance. This is the bulk of the book but only a small part of the subtitle. It is decent for those who may not know much about it, and entertaining too. (Just reading about the Borgias is worth it for many!) But, again, historians of the era will balk at some of his conclusions and facts. The last section is a recapitulation of Magellan's voyage. It—again—uses old sources and tells the story in an old way. Unlike Felipe Fernández-Armesto's new biography of Magellan, Manchester thinks Magellan was a courageous, brave hero in the old mode of Great Man History. And that Magellan's voyage was mind-boggling and mind-altering for the "medieval mind." It probably wasn't that paradigm altering. Still, you can profit from this book. Especially for those who want to read a little history of the Renaissance and don't know much about it. It won't hurt anything.

The original version from 1992 (ISBN 0316545317) is illustrated well with some maps. In 2014, Sterling released an illustrated edition (ISBN 9781454908944) with more images and color pictures. Worth finding the latter if you can cheaply, but not essential.½

This is a book by a non-specialist, non-historian written for a wide audience. He states this in his "Author's Note." His depiction of the middle ages, the medieval era of the title, the "Dark Ages" he calls it, is VERY MUCH disputed by historians of the time period. He repeats corny old chestnuts and hoary views in the first part of the book. The bulk of the book, however, is a narrative and scattershot history of the European Renaissance. This is the bulk of the book but only a small part of the subtitle. It is decent for those who may not know much about it, and entertaining too. (Just reading about the Borgias is worth it for many!) But, again, historians of the era will balk at some of his conclusions and facts. The last section is a recapitulation of Magellan's voyage. It—again—uses old sources and tells the story in an old way. Unlike Felipe Fernández-Armesto's new biography of Magellan, Manchester thinks Magellan was a courageous, brave hero in the old mode of Great Man History. And that Magellan's voyage was mind-boggling and mind-altering for the "medieval mind." It probably wasn't that paradigm altering. Still, you can profit from this book. Especially for those who want to read a little history of the Renaissance and don't know much about it. It won't hurt anything.

The original version from 1992 (ISBN 0316545317) is illustrated well with some maps. In 2014, Sterling released an illustrated edition (ISBN 9781454908944) with more images and color pictures. Worth finding the latter if you can cheaply, but not essential.

Borgia popes, man. Worth it if only for bring to my attention Burchard's Liber Notarum. Vividly written, but many of Manchester's sweeping generalizations seem under-supported or indeed plainly false.

An extraordinary book in an extraordinary series. Manchester is a master story teller with one of history's bravest and most heroic figures. Just as he did with his first volume, the first chapter of the Last Lion presents a slice Churchill's life. Read it and you won't want to quit. Churchill stood alone against the Nazis when the rest of the world had either surrendored, collaberated or ignored the Nazis. Imagine the world if he hadn't kept to his committment to "never, never, never surrendor."

I was not a fan of Winston Church but this trilogy opened up a whole new perspective on Churchill for me. I would read this 3-volume set again. I typically recommend it to others. It is long but has inspired me to read other works on Churchill.

I've been reading bio's of U.S. Presidents and this book was a terrific addition to the history of the era it covers. From FDR through Nixon it covered politics, economy, labor, the arts, giving a broader view of the times then the president bio's that look at everything through the subjects eyes.
I had read a few similar books, American Colossus by H.W. Brands, which did the Gilded Age, and Page Smiths America Enters The World and Redeeming The Time which did the early 1900's through FDR.
All were enjoyable, if long, and made understanding a presidents decisions a little easier.
A little more dense then the previous mentioned books, it still offered a great compliment to the period. It brought up many things I wouldn't have considered on my own which made it fun to read, and think about.
I would definitely recommend this, along with the others, to get a good sense of America during the times they cover.

This is a 2 volume book but isbns are identical - unfortunately - because the second is a sequel and the third was not published until after Manchester's death - and written w help of another so not the same quality

I've wanted to read GOODBYE, DARKNESS (1980) for a long time, ever since reading that cover blurb from the LA Times, saying, "It belongs with the best war memoirs ever written." Unfortunately I don't agree, because I found it to be a frustrating mix of too much of history and not nearly enough of the personal. In fact it didn't seem to fit comfortably into the memoir category at all, and this in spite of the way Manchester framed his story with a narrative of his trip back to the scenes of the most horrific battles of the Pacific theater - Guadalcanal, Guam, Corregidor, Okinawa and more - thirty-plus years later. And maybe I shouldn't have been surprised at all the facts, figures and history crammed in here, since Manchester is, first an foremost, an historian-biographer (MacArthur Mencken, Churchill). And the personal parts here were indeed very good, both the humorous and the horrific, like his failed attempt to lose his virginity in San Diego before shipping out, or the memory of the first time he killed an enemy soldier, close up and very personal. Or accounts of how he was wounded, or carried an injured comrade to safety under fire. These parts, sprinkled here and there between all the historical data were really quite riveting. But they were rare and other parts could be a hard slog. But I got through it all, and it was a pretty impressive read, albeit, to my mind, not a real "memoir."

And then, wondering if/when William Manchester had died, I Googled him. He died in 2002. And after he died, numerous fact checkers learned that most of the personal parts of GOODBYE, DARKNESS were grossly exaggerated or complete fabrications, including his boasts of having been awarded the Navy Cross, a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. Nope. Manchester was a Marine cartographer. He did not receive those distinguished decorations.

Stolen valor. Sad. Why didn't he just write a novel? Because he really can write! I find it all kinda depressing. Because I LOVED his MacArthur biography, AMERICAN CAESAR, when I read it back in the early eighties. Ah, well ...

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir BOOKLOVER½

Was really interested in this but was written in a pretty non accessible way.

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I've been reading bio's of U.S. Presidents and this book was a terrific addition to the history of the era it covers. From FDR through Nixon it covered politics, economy, labor, the arts, giving a broader view of the times then the president bio's that look at everything through the subjects eyes.
I had read a few similar books, American Colossus by H.W. Brands, which did the Gilded Age, and Page Smiths America Enters The World and Redeeming The Time which did the early 1900's through FDR.
All were enjoyable, if long, and made understanding a presidents decisions a little easier.
A little more dense then the previous mentioned books, it still offered a great compliment to the period. It brought up many things I wouldn't have considered on my own which made it fun to read, and think about.
I would definitely recommend this, along with the others, to get a good sense of America during the times they cover.