Grinding through all six is like crossing the Sahara in bare feet, but worth it nonetheless.ĭe Gaulle's memoir is by far the most literary, which caused me to question why Churchill was also by far the more successful author. But as insight into the mind of a man who was the giant of that age, they are without parallel. As impartial history, his books fail miserably since they only cover those events that Churchill must have believed were a reflection on his role in it and then only from his unique perspective. His technique is more to damn with faint praise than condemn outright.
Political and deferential to the last, Churchill seems not to have an unkind word for anybody except Hitler (with whom he also never communicated). Like Churchill, his books were published during a second call to serve his country.Ĭhurchill's version of the war is an annotated compendium of his official correspondence with the other great war leaders (with the notable exception of de Gaulle, with whom he seems not to have written at all). He was rewarded for his literary efforts when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953.ĭe Gaulle’s memoir, more honestly titled war memoirs and more modestly written at about 450 pages per volume, was published in three volumes between 19, after he had the opportunity to read Churchill's. Churchill was never a wealthy man and his income while out of office was almost entirely made from writing. The later volumes were published while Churchill served as Prime Minister for the second time, but were actually written after the British public thanked him for saving the nation by ejecting him from office. Churchill’s memoir, billed as a history by Churchill, was published in six volumes averaging about 800 pages each over five years between 19. These great memoirs deserve to be read together, even though working your way through just one volume is a job for a dedicated student. Like Chang Kai-Shek, he left no considered record at the end.īut Churchill and de Gaulle did leave their personal record of the war. Roosevelt died unexpectedly just as victory was achieved near the end of the war. Anything he wrote or said was created as an instrument of politics and war, not history. Chang Kai-Shek retreated to the island fortress of Taiwan after losing mainland China to political rivals there, never to return but also never to cease fighting the battles started during the war for the rest of his life. Neither recorded anything as a result of their participation in the war. Tojo was hanged by the Allied victors in December 1948. Hitler committed suicide in April 1945 as the very last grains of his empire crumbled around him. Hitler and Tojo died as a direct result of their participation in the war. Of the principle figures of the war – Adolph Hitler, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Chang Kai-Shek, and Hideki Tojo – only Churchill and de Gaulle have chosen to place their version of the war before history. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice.Ī review of the war memoirs of Winston Churchill and Charles de GaulleĪs the dust settled over a ruined world, two of the most central figures of World War II retreated to a quiet place to record their separate views about what had happened.
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