Churchill: The 19th Century man who saved the Western Wold in the 29th Century

Here are two descriptions of Winston Churchill that I particularly: like:The first is from the opening paragraph of Manchester's second volume on Churchill entitled "Alone".

" There ( Chartwell) among the eighty sheltering acres of beech, oak, lime and chesnut stands the singular country home of England's most singular statesman, a brilliant, domineering, intuitive, inconsiderate, self-centered,emotional, generous, ruthless, visionary, a meglomaniacle and heroic genius who inspirese fear, devotion , rage and admiration among his pees. At the very least he is the greatest Englisman since Disraeli, who grapples with the future because he alone can se it."

Then this from a review of manchester's book in the Washington Post and I am ashamed to say I can't remember the author although I knew him at the time'

"As for the man himself, both these books offer rich testamony to his genius. Churchill was not only great as a man of affairs; he was the complete and tounded person - as poetic as rational,as visionary as practical, as imaginative as he was sturdy. Interga vitae might have been the moto of his life. He conbined artistry with hardheadedness and magnanimity with sturdiness. He really believed in the missions of what he called "Christendom" and " the English speaking people". In the years covered by these volumes he wrote his two volume life of the first Duke of Marlborough, his famous ancestor. published six volumes of war memoirs, the first volume of which sold a quarter of a million copies in one day and made him a fortune. He won a Nobel prize for literature ( none was so richly deserved). He exhibited his paintinga at the Royal Academy abd the Tate Galleries. All the time he fondly tended his goldfish, pigs, cats, swans and race horses and proved himself a gifted farmer and brick layer - and devoted friend.

More than a quarter of a century after his death the memory is unfaded. The"great man" theory of history has given way of late to various mechanistic and and material and determanistic explanations of human behavior and events. But unless human nature changes some future emergency will bring the heroic temper and spirit into demand and readers will be drawn to the story of Winston Churchill to find its ultimate human measure. "Remember," he said to a friend not long before his death'" man is spirit". Manchester's book flawed as it is gives an inkling of that dimension.Gilbert, for his part, is content to report - nay, list - the facts without elaboration or judgment. He has assembled the bricks and mortar but faltered in the task of designing and building. Even affter thousands and thousands of his diligent and monumental pages, Churchill still awaits his Churchill."