the last lion winston spencer churchill by william manchester

Rigidly committed to the government’s policy of appeasing Germany, Dawson pioneered what we in 2017 have learned to call “fake news.” To cite just one of many examples: The biggest offender was Geoffrey Dawson, editor-in-chief of London’s The Times. Sir John Reith, president of the BBC, denied Churchill, and anyone who might agree with him, access to the airwaves (p. Although the foreign correspondents of the major newspapers and the BBC faithfully filed accurate reports of what was happening in Europe, their editors and publishers deliberately distorted, through rewrites, or suppressed, by simply killing the stories, the unwelcome news of Nazi brutality and Hitler’s feverish preparations for aggressive war. One of the parallels with our own time that leaps out at the reader with a roar is the corruption and the bald dishonesty of the British news media throughout the 1930s. It’s a sobering tale, but also an epic one.Īs Brendan Bracken, a Member of Parliament and one of Churchill’s few steadfast allies, wrote in a letter to Bernard Baruch, “Winston has won his long fight … No public man of our time has shown more foresight, and I believe that his long, lonely struggle … will prove to be the best chapter in his crowded life” (p.

For those eight years Churchill stood virtually alone, a political exile, warning-dare I say prophetically?-of the disaster that was to come and trying to change the doomed and practically insane policies that were bringing it closer by the day. I review it now because it offers striking parallels with our own time, in 2017.Īlone covers, in great detail, the eight years, 1932–1940, which were the run-up to World War II. It’s been in print for a long time and may be found in many public libraries. 681).Īlone is the middle volume of William Manchester’s monumental biography of this monumental man, The Last Lion. As Churchill wrote, eight grueling years later, when that purpose became known, “ as if I were walking with Destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and this trial” (p.

I believe God preserved him for a special purpose. In 1931, while on a visit to New York, Winston Churchill was hit by a car and nearly killed. One such man was Winston Churchill.Īs Christians, we can see God’s providence at work. Sometimes, when the need is greatest, God raises up a mighty man, a giant, for our deliverance. NovemThe Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone, 1932-1940 by William Manchester(Little, Brown and Company, Boston: 1988)

The last lion winston spencer churchill by william manchester