Review of
My Dear Mr. Churchill,
by Walter Graebner
Three out of five stars
Extremely laudatory
The author is
obviously smitten with Winston Churchill, to his credit, he admits it in the
foreword. The lead sentence in the second-to-the-last paragraph is, “The story
is about a man so great that I suppose another like him will not live in the
next century, a man that no one could know without loving.” When a biographer
utters a statement like that, it is clear that one must read with a bit of
caution.
The author knew
Churchill well, he describes many events that he shared with Churchill, both public
and private. There is a bit of insight into the private life of Churchill,
although most of what is related is common knowledge. Despite the weight
Churchill had in the path of history, most of the text deals with what Churchill
did in private. He was a dog lover, a fairly talented painter and did a great
deal of the work on his estates himself.
If you read
this book while keeping the perspective of the author in mind, this isn’t a bad
book. Otherwise, you may find yourself wondering if the other renditions of
Churchill as a bit of a gruff drunk weren’t quite true.
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