as usual, but one gets that the narrative is being very spread thin as Churchill attempts to cover British, American, and French history all at once.
Even his great ability is limited in how many ways he can describe cavalry charges, troop movements, and the firing of guns, My eyes glazed over on several pages which were mostly lists of verbs of motion, Nonetheless, exciting and informative, though I may now hold the final volume in abeyance for some time, This is a thoroughly oldfashioned, enjoyable narrative history of Britain and the USA in the eighteenth century, As a work of history, it has many flaws: chiefly because it focuses on grand politics and battles, almost to the exclusion of everything else.
So there are only fleeting references to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, whereas the battles of Marlborough, Nelson and Wellington are described in great detail.
Clement Attlee described Churchill's work as the history of things that interested him, and that is particularly true in this volume,
However, in spite of its limitations, this is a most enjoyable book and its vivid prose is a pleasure, Of course the writing is amazingit is Winston Churchill, after all! It was interesting to read about the American Revolution from the perspective of an Englishman.
It is almost exclusively focused on the history of war, There is very little about social history, but i suppose that should be expected from Churchill, It also shows his very skewed view of England's atrocities against the many peoples and countries it invaded, AmblesideOnline year woohoo!!! Weve finished therd book of Churchills History of the English Speaking Peoples!!! This one has a lot more battles and battle descriptions than the first two did but I still really enjoyed it and learned a LOT.
It pretty much ends right after Waterloo, I hadnt ever really understood much about Waterloo before reading Les Miserables and this really gave some bones to what I had gotten from that and now my freshman has the bones on which to put the flesh of the story next school year when she read Les Mis! History the way it should be enjoyed.
The third volume in Winston Churchill's "History of the English Speaking Peoples" begins with the most dramatic assumption of power in modern English history, In the age of religious warfare, the Protestantmajority Parliament deposed its Catholic king, James II, and invited William of Orange and his wife Anne an English princess to take the throne.
The 'glorious revolution' opens The Age of Revolution, an age which ended the long epoch of historyasmadebytheking and ushered in the modern dominance of parliaments, congresses, and diets.
The revolutions which felled kings in England, America, and France anchor the book, with countless European wars occupying the chapters between, Although the wars of religion are fading, state politics causes conflicts aplenty on its own, like the wars of French and Spanish succession, and the seemingly nearconstant AngloFrench wars in the Netherlands.
The wars leapt continents, as the Seven Years War in Europe became the French and Indian War in North America, The greatest conflict, of course, was the series of Napoelonic wars, which end the book, Throughout this long century the book spansyears, the English king plays an increasingly smaller role the 'glorious revolution' isn't the last time Parliament simply chooses to appoint its next king, and the Hanoverian succession of Georges that continues today demonstrated that de facto sovereignty lay with Parliament, not the king.
Churchhill is a moderate historian, and its coverage of the American War of Independence is as genteel and evensided as one might expect from a halfAmerican author shared the rigors of World War II at the side of Franklin D.
Roosevelt, of whom he said, "It's fun to be in the same decade with you, " The conservative Churchhill is likewise careful when recording the bitter battles between Tories and Whigs, the thendominant political parties neither side is favored, The long view of history aides objectivity I doubt Churchill is so fair in his narrative of World War! This is narrative history, a grand story driven by personalities like the the handsome, brilliant, dashing, gallant, honorable, endlessly clever Duke of Marlborough.
Also known as John Churchill, or Sir Winston's greatgreatetcgrandfather, the attention given to him shows that this isn't quite 'objective' history, but what's the point of having famous ancestors if you can't brag about their exploits defending the Netherlands against dictators from the east Given his own history in World War, little wonder he identified with the Duke's so strongly.
The French revolution gives us a villain in Napoleon, and towering heroes in the form of the Duke of Wellington and Lord Nelson to slay the Corsican dragon.
All told, The Age of Revolution is quite an enjoyable survey of this period's history, of medieval kingdoms maturing into modern states, despite being largely about the wills of titanic characters and the wars they fought.
title: The Englishspeaking peoples start speaking with an accent
A note about the structure of Churchill's fourvolume history of the English speaking peoples: each volume is equally divided into three books a total ofthen for the set, each covering a major era or event in the history, sometimes spanning centuries in the first couple of books as there is little recorded history to report, and sometimes covering just a few years or decadesor a lessgreat event than others.
This is the case in Book VII that opens this Volume, where there is interminable and uninteresting descriptions of European battles in the early years of theth century.
While Churchill accurately and interestingly describes this era as the First British Empire in Book VIII that follows, he spends more time than modern or American readers will have patience for on the the establishment of it.
So again, I can't give this volume an uncompromised"What a Classic rating!"
It is certainly worth the time to read, however, As I noted at the end of my previous review, I was anxious to see how Churchill the Prime Minister in the midst of a bitterlyfought World War with Englishspeaking peoples from around the globe allied in defense of freedom would commune with Churchill the historian documenting an era when the two major bodies of Englishspeaking people were at also war but with each othernot once, but twice.
It didn't take Churchill the politician to speakon p,of theDodd, Mead amp Company edition, in reference to opposition politicians in his home country:
They did all they could to belittle and undermine the strength of their country.
In the name of peace, economy, and isolation they prepared the ground for a far more terrible renewal of the war, Their action has been largely imitated in our own times, In each case shortsighted opinions, agreeable to the party spirit, pernicious to national interests, banished all purpose from the State and prepared a deadly resumption of the main struggle.
And as I suspected, desperately needing and thankful for thethcentury support of his American allies, Churchill the politician treads gently on the American revolution, labeling it in a sly twist of wording essentially a revolution toward English manners and political morality! p.
:
The new nation that had with difficulty struggled into being was henceforth fortified with something unheard of in the existing worlda written Constitution.
At first sight this authoritative document presents a sharp contrast with the store of traditions and precedents that make up the unwritten constitution of Britain.
Yet behind it lay no revolutionary theory, . . but an Old English doctrine, freshly formulated to meet an urgent American need, The Constitution was a reaffirmation of faith in the principles painfully evolved over the centuries by the Englishspeaking peoples, It enshrined longstanding English ideas of justice and liberty, henceforth to be regarded on the other side of the Atlantic as basically American,
While in the main true and well put, the modern and American reader like me wonders which side of the Atlantic Churchill meant to be taken as "the other", and with what emotion and language Churchill revealed his private feelings behind closed doors to his British friends and family!
Of course, the modern Allies were a manysided affair, and included the occupied French nation with which Churchill the historian was busy documenting a bitter warfare and which his ancestral home was fighting a rearguard action to contain the violent and virulent Revolution in support of the Rights of Man, as the French proletariat so boldly put it in caps.
So Churchill saves his most animus for the French revolutionaries, safe in the knowledge thatyears later their remnant was all dead and all but forgotten or submerged in subsequent upheavals and retrenchments.
He references Burke approvingly in criticizing the French revolution because it was "not a dignified, orderly change, carried out with due regard for tradition, like the English Revolution of.
" A priceless revelation of the British mind and mindset, to criticize a revolution for being undignified and unorderly!
And in covering the War ofwhich while a mere sidelight of the European contagion for the British, was a founding and formative event for the young American nation, even to giving us our anthemChurchill again emphasizes the conservative and essential fraternal nature of the "futile and unnecessary conflict.
" While to the Empirebuilding victors the war was a trifling affair easily settled to the benefit of all, again Churchill's subconscious awareness of Britain's enduring superiority speaks loudly in his concluding sentence: "On the oceans the British Navy ruled supreme for a century to come, and behind this shield the United States were free to fulfil their continental destiny.
" Gee, thanks, Dad! When can we borrow the keys to your ocean
But these are perhaps inevitable nitpicks of a narrative history of such scope by a writer of such stature.
Churchill, after the lapse into boredom in the first book in this volume, does a great job of building interest and momentum throughout the momentous events of theth century, leading up to and concluding with the disposition twice! of Napoleon in theth.
. Churchill will wrap up the nextyears and bring the story home to the outskirts of theth century in the final installment volume of his classic history.
This book seems to be divided into three parts, The first part tells A LOT about the Duke of Marlborough and how amazingly wonderful he was, In fact, Churchill talks more about him than the actual British monarchy during this time, However, I guess that shouldn't be too surprising since Churchill is a direct descendant of the duke and he's obviously really proud of him,
The second part of this book was extremely interesting to me, since it dealt with the American Revolution and I'm an American with an intense love of US history.
At first, I thought it would be fascinating to read about the Revolution from the British point of view, But then, when I thought about when this book was written soon after the USA helped the UK beat Nazi Germany, I realized I wouldn't get the nitty gritty stuff I had originally assumed I would.
However, I learned A LOT
of interesting facts, A few facts I enjoyed were: Churchill reallllly didn't like Samuel Adams, the British parliament voted to NOT repeal the stamp act by ONE VOTE! Craziness! Also, the British seemed to hold George Washington in high honor.
They liked him so much that their own soldiers guarded Mount Vernon during the War of, That was very impressive to me,
The third part of the book talks about Napoleon Bonaparte, Reading about him and how his actions affected Europe, but with an emphasis on England, helped me see a different view of this part of history.
I also enjoyed that Churchill touched on how Bonaparte ended up helping the USA expand,
I very much enjoyed this book and am looking forward to the next in the series, I listened to this on Audible, I found this one harder to follow than the previous two but that could just be me, I think I was struggling to keep track of all the names, who was who, However, it is still a good listen,
Churchill was best when describing the exploits of his ancestor, Lord Marlborough, I also appreciated his description of the rise and fall of Napoleon, Most English history books only cover the period tangentially, Churchill goes into detail. It makes more sense now, Also, as an American who now lives in England, the description of the development of the American colonies and the resulting revolution are good coming from an English standpoint.
And especially the war of, Churchill was a great historian, good at telling stories, Slightly disappointed that Jonathan Strange did not appear by the end to help defeat Napoleon but, oh well! it dissolves, . . In the style and scope of Gibbons and Macaulay well done Sir Winston Churchill! As I knew we would, we get a little slur heavy when it comes to nonwhite people, especially Natives.
And the complete lack of slavery in the narrative isn't surprising either, sadly, But I did learn a lot of Napoleonic war history This was the third volume of Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples, This volume health with the years from the Glorious Revolution to the end of Napoleon, This book also included a few chapters on America including the Revolution, the first three Presidential Administrations, and the War of, I enjoy Churchill's writing style and find these survey books interesting to read they also make me want to find books that are more indepth on a variety of topics.
I thought it was thourough, but it was a little bit biased, Since the author's Grandfather was the Duke of Marlborough, he talked exessively of him, "This history will endure not only because Sir Winston has written it, but also because of its own inherent virtues its narrative power, its fine judgment of war and politics, of soldiers and statesmen, and even more because it reflects a tradition of what Englishmen in the heyday of their empire thought and felt about their country's past.
" The Daily Telegraph
Spanning four volumes and many centuries of history, from Caesar's invasion of Britain to the start of World War I, A History of the EnglishSpeaking Peoples stands as one of Winston Churchill's most magnificent literary works.
Begun during Churchill's 'wilderness years' when he was out of government, first published inafter his leadership through the darkest days of World War II had cemented his place in history and completed when Churchill was in hiss, it remains to this day a compelling and vivid history.
In The Age of Revolution the third volume of Churchill's history Churchill charts the rise of Great Britain as a world power and the long rivalry with France, the shadow of the French Revolution, the rise of Napoleon and his defeat at Waterloo.
The volume also covers the rise of the American colonies, their triumphant overthrow of British rule in the War of Independence and the first great generation of American leaders: Washington, Adams and Jefferson.
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