A Year in the Life of Churchill
BOOK REVIEW
In these times of COVID-19, people have a lot of time to read books. LW residents are invited to submit reviews of their favorites for publication in the LW Weekly. Include your name and mutual and telephone numbers. The reviews are subject to editing and will run as space allows. Email them to pattym@lwsb.com. For more information, call (562) 472-1277. “The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz” by Erik Larson Nonfiction, Feb. 25, 2020
by Maureen Habel
LW Contributor
Want to read something uplifting during the pandemic? This book explores just one year— from May 1940 to May 1941—in the life of Winston Churchill, as he led the United Kingdom during World War II.
On Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded the Netherlands and Belgium, joining Poland and Czechoslovakia as Nazi-occupied countries. For the next year, the Germans conducted a bombing campaign that killed more than 45,000 in England. Churchill had the formidable task of holding his country together while persuading President Franklin D. Roosevelt that England would fall without American aid.
The book describes how Churchill inspired his people to endure this darkest year through his experiences, as well as those of his family and closest allies. Using diaries and archival reports, Erik Larson paints a picture of a man who was committed to giving his people not only hope, but also the will to fight on.
Scores of lengthy, multivolume books have been written about Churchill and WWII. But Larson has the remarkable gift of making history readable, using one pivotal year as a crucible. Even though we know how things turned out, the book is a page-turner as you follow Churchill, his challenging family, his supporters and his detractors. Above all, it is a story of human strength and determination that inspires.
If you enjoy this book, I suggest you check out Larson’s other contributions to historical writing: “Dead Wake,” the story of the sinking of the Lusitania; “Isaac’s Storm,” about the 1900 Galveston, Texas, hurricane; “In the Garden of the Beasts,” about the rising Nazi domination of Germany; and “The Devil in the White City,” the story of a serial killer roaming the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
