Winston and the Windsors

 

Winston and the Windsors: How Churchill Shaped a Royal Dynasty- Andrew Morton

Hanover Square Press

Release Date: October 21, 2025

Rating: 📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Few figures in British history have been so deeply and consequentially involved with the British royal family as Winston Churchill. Churchill was unique in his helping to shape not only a single reign but an entire royal dynasty.

However, it was by no means a seamless relationship. At times, the royals treated him with suspicion and contempt; at others they were avuncular, competitive and cheering. Yet whether he was playing the role of antagonist to the royal family or that of trusted confidante, the Prime Minister's influence was central to the twentieth-century history of the monarchy. This is drama of the first order, at times thrilling and always compelling.

Winston and the Windsors marks the first dual biography of Winston Churchill alongside the royal family. Having unearthed much under-appreciated archival material – including diary entries, postcards and letters to and from Kings, Queens and princes – Morton presents a meticulously researched biography of a royal house and a beloved Prime Minister.

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I've read many books on Winston Churchill, but this is the first I've read that focuses specifically on his relationship with the royal family- not as The Monarchy, but as individuals. In following his career there are certainly cases where his influence did help shape the monarchy's path, particularly during World War II, but it was the individual stories I found most interesting.

  

Churchill was born during the reign of Queen Victoria and his parents were close friends with her eldest son, the Prince of Wales and future King Edward VII. While I knew Edward and Churchill's mother Jennie had a close friendship, I'd never known how close the relationship between Edward and Winston was. Even after becoming king, Edward took the time to offer nearly parternal advise and praise to young Winston- something he never received from his own father. That section was perhaps my favorite to read for the new knowledge I gained and the stories it shared. 

As a rising politician Churchill frequently clashed in his thoughts and policy ideals with the reigning monarch (especially George V!) and Morton includes notes and diary entries from George V with his thoughts on Churchill that were less than complementary at times. But each man was able to separate politics from the personal and it was fascinating to watch their developing relationships on different fronts.

Much of the information covering the Abdication Crisis, Winston's relationship with David (Edward VIII) and George VI wasn't new but still presented well. And within the context of the book it put a different spin on things I already knew. Morton goes deeply, if briefly into Churchill's relationship with Queen Elizabeth II and I greatly enjoyed that section- again the context of the book helped me see things I knew as well as new information (maybe just new to me) in new and interesting ways.

Winston and the Windsors is more than a new biography of Winston Churchill. It is a biography of the Windsor family and the monarchy throughout the first part of the 20th century, and the huge part that Churchill played in keeping it a strong institution in trying times. Anyone interested in Churchill, the British royal family, and 20th century Briish history should read the carefully researched and entertainingly written book.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Sisterhood of Ravensbruck

 

The Sisterhood of Ravensbruck: How an Intrepid Band of Frenchwomen Resisted the Nazis in Hitler's All-Femal Concentration Camp- Lynne Olson

Random House

Release Date: June 3, 2025

Rating:📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: For decades after World War II, histories of the French Resistance were written almost exclusively by men and largely ignored the contributions of women. Many current overviews of the subject continue to underplay the extent and importance of women’s participation in the Resistance, treating the subject, in the words of one historian, as ‘an anonymous background element in an essentially male story’.

The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück corrects that omission, surveying the bond between four women — Germaine Tillion, Anise Girard, Genevieve de Gaulle, and Jacqueline d’Alincourt — who fought valiantly against Nazi oppression. While the women belonged to different Resistance movements and networks, they were united by a common they were arrested by the Gestapo, underwent merciless interrogations and beatings, were jailed — and, most significantly, survived, if just barely, the hell of Ravensbrück, the only concentration camp designed specifically for women. In an institution designed to dehumanise and kill, the sisterhood maintained their sense of self and joined together to face down death.

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Lynne Olson is one of my favorite historians, and has a wonderful talent for bringing out hidden voices and stories during World War 2 that help us discover so many new aspects to that time. Her last two books (Madame Fourcarde's Secret War and Empress of the Nile) explore the lives of two women who were trail-blazers both during and after the war, but who during the war helped build the French resistance against the Nazis. The Sisterhood of Ravensbruck follows the lives of four women: Germaine Tillion, Anise Girard, Genevieve de Gaulle, and Jacqueline d'Alincourt who were also part of the French Resistance- and who were sent to (and survived) Ravensbruck camp for that resistance.

The book is divided into three sections: before, during, and after Ravensbruck, and I was a little surprised at much of it focused on the after. As you'd expect with any book dealing with Nazis, concentration camps, etc. there are some parts that are hard to read. But the sisterhood that developed among the women in the camp, particularly the French women Olson focuses on, brought with it such surprising hope as well. They helped each other survive through so many acts that it brought tears to my eyes as I was reading. The Polish women (called "rabbits") who were used as medical experiments in the camp were helped by everyone, including being hidden when the order to kill them came at the end of the war (if you've read Martha Hall Kelly's Lilac Girls, it's based on the rabbit's story). The prisoners knew they all faced death for defying their captors, but they resisted the Nazis again. The strength of the women, sharing their tiny amounts of food, medicine, gathering evidence of the crimes against them in the hope that one day they would be free to use it, was staggering to me. As I read I could only wonder if I would have been that brave, and hope the answer would have been yes.

It should come as no surprise that none of the Ravensbruck women stopped being amazing after leaving the camp. They continued to stand together to ensure whoever needed medical help got it, to help each other reintergrate into post-War life. They stood as witnesses for the dead against the crimes the Ravensbruck Nazis had committed. They helped the "rabbits" get to America for medical tretment. And continued to stand up against injustices and crimes against humanity wherever they saw them for the rest of their lives. 

The inspiration brought to me by this story leaves me speechless. It is hard and uplifting, often at the same time– and absolutely a book we should all read and learn from. As we should learn from these women.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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The Splendid and the Vile

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz- Erik Larson
Crown/Random House
Release Date: February 25, 2020

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end.

In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless.” It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill’s “Secret Circle,” to whom he turns in the hardest moments.
 
The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.

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Erik Larson has done it again! There is no other way to start a discussion of Larson's (Dead Wake) newest book: The Splendid and the Vile.  This is the story of Churchill and his family in his first year as prime minister as Hitler not only takes over swathes of Europe, but also begins bombing England in what would become known as the Blitz.  

Not solely a military or political history, Splendid seeks to answer the question: what was it like for people living through the Blitz?  How did Churchill's family balance politics and personal lives?  Using personal diaries and archival documents, Larson is able to tell these stories using the words of people like Mary Churchill, Winston's youngest daughter; Pamela Churchill, his unhappy daughter-in-law; and John Colville, one of his personal secretaries.  Their loves and losses show attempts to carry on normal lives while also dealing with bombings that often came quite close to killing them. Although I hadn't really thought about it before reading Splendid, I knew very little about Churchill's family and quickly became fascinated to learn about them and their experiences.  I found myself asking the book (in the middle of tense military action when I hadn't heard from the family in awhile) "but how is Pamela coping?  Is Mary really going to marry that guy? What the heck is Randolph thinking?" every bit as anxiously as I found myself worrying over where the next bomb would fall. 

Larson's eye for detail and talent for descriptions create a cinematic effect: the reader can see the moonlit countryside from the view of a Luftwaffe pilot, smell the cordite and taste the dust and grit of bombed out buildings. This should appeal to the casual reader every bit as much as the history devotee.

 My favorite histories are ones that look at the day-to-day experience of regular people as well as the movers and shakers.  Thanks to extensive diaries kept by people across England, those details are available to us and Larson uses these diaries every bit as much as the diaries of Churchill's private secretaries. Because of this, as well as Larson's excellent writing style, readers will be drawn in from page one and held, enthralled, until the very end.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Fire and Fortitude

Fire and Fortitude: The US Army in the Pacific War, 1941-1943- John C. McManus
Dutton Caliber
Release Date: July 30, 2019

Rating:
📚📚

Synopsis: John C. McManus, one of our most highly acclaimed historians of World War II, takes readers from Pearl Harbor—a rude awakening for a military woefully unprepared for war—to Makin, a sliver of coral reef where the Army was tested against the increasingly desperate Japanese. In between were nearly two years of punishing combat as the Army transformed, at times unsteadily, from an undertrained garrison force into an unstoppable juggernaut, and America evolved from an inward-looking nation into a global superpower.
 At the pinnacle of this richly told story are the generals: Douglas MacArthur, a military autocrat driven by his dysfunctional lust for fame and power; Robert Eichelberger, perhaps the greatest commander in the theater yet consigned to obscurity by MacArthur's jealousy; "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell, a prickly soldier miscast in a diplomat's role; and Walter Krueger, a German-born officer who came to lead the largest American ground force in the Pacific. Enriching the narrative are the voices of men otherwise lost to history: the uncelebrated Army grunts who endured stifling temperatures, apocalyptic tropical storms, rampant malaria and other diseases, as well as a fanatical enemy bent on total destruction. 

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Reading about World War II generally begins with the European theater: Normandy, the Battle of Britain, Dunkirk, etc. For Americans, Pearl Harbor may be as far into the Pacific theater as they go.  Further reading generally focuses on the Navy and sea battles.  So I was very interested to read John C. McManus' Fire and Fortitude: The US Army in the Pacific War, 1941-1943 and learn more about the early Pacific war and the army.

Spoiler alert: for readers like me who know very little going in, Fire and Fortitude is not the book for you.  After reading the "Prologue" I almost decided not to continue reading the book. Written as if a college professor is giving a lecture, it put me off the author and made me worry the book was going to be written in the same style: McManus seems to want to show the reader that he knows his military history and compares World War II Pacific army work with both historic and modern day situations.  He 'talks' down to the reader, trying to impress them (one assumes) with his knowledge and the introduction to the book and its topics felt almost secondary to me.  

If you can make it past the prologue and still want to read the book, the writing style at least gets better.  There are fewer comparisons to situations past and future to distract from the present of the 1940s.  Beginning at Pearl Harbor and going to Makin in 1943, McManus provides carefully researched minute details to make the reader feel as if they are experiencing every hardship alongside the soldiers.  For anyone wanting to find out about the intense miseries of jungle warfare, this is your book. From marches along ridges to the psychological terror of being in foxholes at night, Fire and Fortitude had you covered.  It makes you wonder how anyone experiencing it (on both the American and Japanese side) came out even halfway sane.  

What Fire and Fortitude didn't do was give you the bigger picture of the Pacific theater.  When you do get some of the overall plans and decision making from the generals, it quickly gets buried again in the tiny details.  I know I read about McArthur's experiences in the Philippines and why he was obsessed with returning there after evacuating, but after a few chapters I was so bogged down in minutiae that I couldn't remember his reasons for the rest of the book.  As much as I appreciated the miseries that the soldiers went through, I could have handled fewer of the repetitious details of those miseries on every island fight and more of the big picture on why they were fighting on the islands to come away with a better understanding of the war in the Pacific.

Overall, Fire and Fortitude is not a book for a reader new to the Pacific theater.  From ship tonnage to what each soldier carried to the specific divisions and regiments who went to different places, this is a book for historians who already know an enormous amount about this theater and are looking for even more details. For the beginner, like me, McManus spends so much time focusing on the details that the bigger picture is completely lost on you.  Because of this, I found the book an ordeal to get through, and not an author I would go back to for future reading.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

True Story of the Great Escape

The True Story of the Great Escape: Stalag Luft III, March 1944- Jonathan Vance
Greenhill Books
Release Date: March 31, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Between dusk and dawn on the night of March 24th–25th 1944, a small army of Allied soldiers crawled through tunnels in Germany in a covert operation the likes of which the Third Reich had never seen before.The prison break from Stalag Luft III in eastern Germany was the largest of its kind in the Second World War. Seventy-nine Allied soldiers and airmen made it outside the wire – but only three made it outside Nazi Germany. Fifty were executed by the Gestapo.Jonathan Vance tells the incredible story that was made famous by the 1963 film The Great Escape. The escape is a classic tale of prisoner and their wardens in a battle of wits and wills.The brilliantly conceived escape plan is overshadowed only by the colourful, daring (and sometimes very funny) crew who executed it – literally under the noses of German guards.From their first days in Stalag Luft III and the forming of bonds key to such exploits, to the tunnel building, amazing escape and eventual capture, Vance's history is a vivid, compelling look at one of the greatest 'exfiltration' missions of all time.

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In honor of the 75th anniversary of the "Great Escape", Jonathan Vance's book, originally privately published as A Gallant Company, has been updated and reissued by Greenhill Books.  My first reaction on finishing this book was "Wow. Just. Wow."  

The True Story of the Great Escape is a detailed, carefully researched, and finely crafted account of the men of Stalag Luft III and their daring escape attempt on the night of March 24-25, 1944.  Vance gives the reader brief accounts of all of the principal POWs- their pre-war lives, how they came to be pilots, as well as the mission when they were captured- in between describing life at the camp.  What I found the most fascinating were his descriptions of how the prisoners made things.  When the plan for the great escape went underway an entire committee of prisoners made perfectly crafted clothes, forged papers, handheld compasses, maps, and anything else that might be needed- made them from materials they scrounged from the camp or bribed from guards. 

As much as this is a book about perseverance and ingenuity in the face of overwhelming odds, it is also a tribute to the men themselves.  Vance honors them all for their bravery and achievements from Roger "Big X" Bushell who masterminded the scheme down to escapees like Canadian pilot George Wiley (my grandfather's cousin).  Even though there is no surprise about how this escape will end for most of the men, I found myself hoping for the best and near tears reading what would be final goodbyes in the camp, let alone the orders for fifty of the recaptured escapers to be shot.  This is a very human story, from the pilots to the prison guards, Vance refuses to let us imagine any of them as stereotypes from a movie. 

Poignant and powerful, The True Story of the Great Escape is a must read for any history lover.     

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Madame Fourcade's Secret War

Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler- Lynne Olson
Random House 
Release Date: March 5, 2019

Rating:
📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: In 1941 a thirty-one-year-old Frenchwoman, a young mother born to privilege and known for her beauty and glamour, became the leader of a vast intelligence organization—the only woman to serve as a chef de résistance during the war. Strong-willed, independent, and a lifelong rebel against her country’s conservative, patriarchal society, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was temperamentally made for the job. Her group’s name was Alliance, but the Gestapo dubbed it Noah’s Ark because its agents used the names of animals as their aliases. The name Marie-Madeleine chose for herself was Hedgehog: a tough little animal, unthreatening in appearance, that, as a colleague of hers put it, “even a lion would hesitate to bite.”

No other French spy network lasted as long or supplied as much crucial intelligence—including providing American and British military commanders with a 55-foot-long map of the beaches and roads on which the Allies would land on D-Day—as Alliance. The Gestapo pursued them relentlessly, capturing, torturing, and executing hundreds of its three thousand agents, including Fourcade’s own lover and many of her key spies. Although Fourcade, the mother of two young children, moved her headquarters every few weeks, constantly changing her hair color, clothing, and identity, she was captured twice by the Nazis. Both times she managed to escape—once by slipping naked through the bars of her jail cell—and continued to hold her network together even as it repeatedly threatened to crumble around her.

Now, in this dramatic account of the war that split France in two and forced its people to live side by side with their hated German occupiers, Lynne Olson tells the fascinating story of a woman who stood up for her nation, her fellow citizens, and herself

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Author Lynne Olson (Last Hope Island) specializes in bringing to life little known aspects of some of history's most powerful moments and Madame Fourcade's Secret War is a stellar addition.  Marie-Madeleine Fourcade is a young woman who rebelled against not only the Nazis but also the generally accepted role of women as second class citizens to become a major part of French resistance movement during World War II.  Fourcade's resistance network, Alliance, was the largest and most successful operation during German occupation of France and worked closely with MI6 during the entire war, attempting to stay out of politics and focus on freeing France at a time when so many other groups (both British and French) fought as hard against each other as they did against the Germans.

Fourcade recruited men and women from all parts of France and all walks of life into Alliance, which the Gestapo called Noah's Ark because all the members used the codenames of animals.  Olson is able to recreate the very human elements of this time- from the early days of occupied Paris to the heartbreaking final months of the war.  The reader feels Fourcade's triumphs, stresses, joys and sorrows as the spymaster known as "Hedgehog" tried to keep her people safely out of German hands.  We learn the little known stories of agents who risked their lives to deliver detailed maps and crucial information to MI6- including much of the information that made the Allies D-Day landing on Normandy possible.

Marie-Madeleine Fourcade might have been tailor made for the starring role in a new Hollywood spy movie or best-selling novel.  But Lynne Olson has once again proven that history can be just as fascinating as fiction.  Her clean, vibrant writing style adds no frills to a story that needs no embellishment.  Her research and attention to detail mean that events speak for themselves and the reader can't help but be swept along on Fourcade;s fight for freedom.

A must-read for history lovers!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Indianapolis

The Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man- Lynn Vincent & Sara Vladic
Simon & Schuster
Release Date: July 10, 2018

Rating:
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Just after midnight on July 30, 1945, days after delivering the components of the atomic bomb from California to the Pacific Islands in the most highly classified naval mission of the war, USS Indianapolis is sailing alone in the center of the Philippine Sea when she is struck by two Japanese torpedoes. The ship is instantly transformed into a fiery cauldron and sinks within minutes. Some 300 men go down with the ship. Nearly 900 make it into the water alive. For the next five nights and four days, almost three hundred miles from the nearest land, the men battle injuries, sharks, dehydration, insanity, and eventually each other. Only 316 will survive.

For the better part of a century, the story of USS Indianapolis has been understood as a sinking tale. The reality, however, is far more complicated—and compelling. Now, for the first time, thanks to a decade of original research and interviews with 107 survivors and eyewit­nesses, Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic tell the complete story of the ship, her crew, and their final mission to save one of their own.

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Most people today know the story of the Indianapolis, if they know it at all, from the movie Jaws.  While hunting a great white shark, boat captain Quint tells Hooper and Brody of being on the Indy (as she was known by the crew) when she sunk, sharks circling until the men were pulled from the water after delivering "the bomb".  The full story, told here for the first time, is much more complex, dramatic, and heartbreaking.  Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic do full justice to the story of the Indy, her crew, and her captain in this new book, The Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man.  

Vincent and Vladic have done incredible, in-depth research with only primary sources- including speaking with survivors- to piece together a saga every bit as gripping and full of personal drama as the sinking of the Titanic or Lusitania.  The stories of the crew, how they lived, how they came to be on Indy in the first place, their families and plans for the future connect you to them intimately.  Indy's final, famous mission was a series of coincidences and Naval negligence from first to last.  Originally she was not slated to carry uranium for the first atomic bomb, but due to damage from a kamikaze strike she was in California finishing repairs and called into action because of the sterling reputation of her captain, Charles McVay III.  After successfully delivering the uranium, Indy was slated to travel to Guam for training. Despite knowing there was submarine activity in the route McVay was to take, he was told by authorities the route was safe, and given no escort.  The recounting of the torpedo strikes, the sinking, and the five nights the survivors spent in the water are told in a straightforward piecing together of memories.  No additional drama is needed to make the tale emotional, dramatic,, and viscerally terrifying and heartbreaking.

The story of the Indianapolis does not end when the 316 survivors were pulled out of the water.  Vincent and Vladic follow the crew back to the States, and then all too troubling tale of the courtmarshal of Captain McVay for negligence in allowing his ship to be sunk.  It took over fifty years and an amazing amount of intense battling before this injustice was rectified and McVay's record cleared.  

Thoroughly researched and deeply moving, the story of the Indianapolis is a tale of courage, strength, and determination in the face of overwhelming odds. Despite Vincent and Vladic's prose occasionally falling victim to non-fiction book's tendency of dramatically foreshadowing what is to come (the typical "it was a mistake they would soon come to regret" type of chapter ending) and the fact that they can't seem to go more than three sentences without using similes or metaphors in describing anything, The Indianapolis is a well told, compelling story. 

Fans of Erik Larson's Dead Wake will appreciate the attention to detail not only from the American point of view, but the Japanese as well.  An absolute must-read for military history buffs, naval history buffs, or anyone curious about the story behind the tale told in Jaws, The Indianapolis is a powerful, fast-paced, emotionally moving, account of the greatest disaster in U.S. naval history.  

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Death of Democracy

The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic- Benjamin Carter Hett
Henry Holt & Co.
Release Date: April 3, 2018

Rating:
📚

Synopsis: Why did democracy fall apart so quickly and completely in Germany in the 1930s? How did a democratic government allow Adolf Hitler to seize power? In The Death of Democracy, Benjamin Carter Hett answers these questions, and the story he tells has disturbing resonances for our own time.

To say that Hitler was elected is too simple. He would never have come to power if Germany’s leading politicians had not responded to a spate of populist insurgencies by trying to co-opt him, a strategy that backed them into a corner from which the only way out was to bring the Nazis in. Hett lays bare the misguided confidence of conservative politicians who believed that Hitler and his followers would willingly support them, not recognizing that their efforts to use the Nazis actually played into Hitler’s hands. They had willingly given him the tools to turn Germany into a vicious dictatorship.

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How Hitler was able to come into power in Germany has always been an interesting debate.  What could have been differently? How much of our debates are 20-20 hindsight versus what was actually seen and known at the time?  Could something like that ever happen again?  Benjamin Carter Hett's The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic is the latest look into the Germany of the 1920s and 1930s and an attempt to understand what happened.  

Unfortunately, for as potentially interesting as the topic is, Hett completely failed to keep me engaged in the book.  He assumes his reader is familiar with the Weimar republic and much of the German condition post World War I, and mentions conspiracies and people that he only later goes back to explain.  There was a level of back and forth to his timeline that kept me uncertain of the order of many of the events he was talking about.  I found it hard to keep track of the different political parties in Germany for most of the book, thought whether that was a lack of understanding on my part or Hett's to explain in memorable detail I still don't know.  Often repetitive, hammering in points that the readers easily grasps and remembers while glancing off topics you wish he's spent more time on, Hett explores how no one single event created the situation, but decades of cultural, political, and economic change and unrest.  By the end of the book I didn't feel like I had a much clearer grasp on the topic as when I started, but Hett did write one idea that stuck out to me, and probably summed up much of the situation: sometimes it isn't about reality.  Statements can be demonstrably untrue, but it is all about what people emotionally need to believe, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

For a book that was only a little over 200 pages, reading it seemed to be an uphill slog the whole way, and much more work than it was worth.  Hett spent as much time making comparisons between Germany in the 1930s and the Nazi methods and today's American political climate (while carefully not naming names) that it seemed to me the end point of his book was not so much to explain how Hitler and the Nazis managed to come into power (which he had only limited success with for me) as showing how it can happen again today.  Anyone who really wants to give this book a try to see what they can learn should just read the last chapter, which is as much a summary of the rest of the book as a wrap up and lead in to World War II.  It gives you the clearest ideas without actually making you read the entire book.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Alone

Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat into Victory- Michael Korda
Liveright Publishing Co
Release Date: September 19, 2017

Rating (out of 5):
📚📚

Synopsis: Bringing to vivid life the world leaders, generals, and ordinary citizens who fought on both sides of the war, Michael Korda, best-selling author of Clouds of Glory, chronicles the outbreak of hostilities, recalling as a prescient young boy the enveloping tension that defined pre-Blitz London, and then as a military historian the great events that would alter the course of the twentieth century.

May 1940 was a month like no other. The superior German war machine blazed into France, as the Maginot Line, supposedly "as firmly fixed in place as the Pyramids," crumbled in days. With the fall of Holland and Belgium, the imminent fall of Paris, the British Army stranded at Dunkirk, and Neville Chamberlain’s government in political freefall, Winston Churchill became prime minister on this historical nadir of May 10, 1941. Britain, diplomatically isolated, was suddenly the only nation with the courage and the resolve to defy Hitler.

No one, after all, could have ever imagined that the most unlikely flotilla of destroyers—Dutch barges, fishing boats, yachts, and even rowboats— would rescue over 300,000 men off the beach at Dunkirk and home to England. The miraculous return of the army was greeted with a renewed call for courage, and in the months that followed, the lives of tens of millions would be inexorably transformed, often tragically so, by these epochal weeks of May 1940.

It is this pivotal turning point in world history that Korda captures with such immediacy in Alone, a work that triumphantly demonstrates that even the most calamitous defeats can become the most legendary victories.

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Michael Korda's new book Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat into Victory examines the the early days of World War II.  Alone covers a lot of events, mostly from the British point of view but also French and German: Chamberlain's failed appeasement policy, France and England reluctantly being drawn back into war, Churchill becoming Prime Minister, Germany rewriting the use of tanks in warfare, conflicting personalities and agendas among allied generals.  All leading up to the evacuation of over 300,000 English and French troops from the beach of Dunkirk, late May 1940.  Scattered throughout the researched history are personal stories and a bit of family history as Korda reflects on his own memories as a 6 year old in a wealthy family of actors and movie makers.

Based on the book blurb for Alone, I had high hopes this would be a World War II history along the lines of Lynne Olson's Last Hope Island- meticulously researched, written with vivid detail and an eye for making individuals and their experiences leap off the page and into your mind.  Alone is certainly well researched.  I now have a much better understanding of the creation and purpose of the famed French Maginot Line after reading the early part of Alone.  The research into the French and British military leaders, their different approaches, their conflicts among themselves, and the difficulties they had in communicating with each other (not only with radios, and phones, but personal dislikes that often meant one man in charge wasn't on speaking terms with another) was well done and gave you a sense of what the chaos on the ground must have been like. How they accomplished any successes with so many personal clashes going on is (as is the case in most military histories I've read recently) amazing.

The Korda family moments interspersed within Alone were occasionally interesting, but generally felt like they belonged in a separate book.  Instead of showing what life on the home front was normally like, more often than not they showed how money could soften difficulties. Korda frequently mentions how his uncle Alex worked with Churchill and the government to make his (then current) movies into subtle propaganda designed to gain the sympathy and support of the United States.  The Thief of Baghdad and That Hamilton Woman were eventually made in the US to seem like 'regular' big budget Hollywood movies instead of British propaganda.  But the reader never gets an idea of what that meant, or if it worked- which would have made me much more interested in it.  The actual telling of the evacuation from Dunkirk only takes place in the last 100 or so pages of Alone and often seemed scattered and disorienting.  I'm sure that this is what the people on the ground experienced at the time, but I was hoping for a more coherent and understandable account to this interesting and unique moment in history.

Overall I was disappointed in Alone.  Instead of being a vivid account of a slice of history it was often repetitive, and choppily written.  Personal family stories didn't blend in to give us a better feeling for the time but mostly jarred the reader from the military narrative.  Military leaders and personalities blended together, making it hard to remember who was who (often even what side they were on) and even Winston Churchill didn't spring to life here.  The evacuation story itself almost seemed like an afterthought, with a few good, clear moments.  People who have seen Chris Nolan's 2017 movie Dunkirk will recognize the inspiration for the "sea" story of The Moonstone, and find the original story ( in my opinion) even more interesting and gripping- one of the few moments I could say that about Alone.

     

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Last Hope Island

Last Hope Island: Britain's Brotherhood with Occupied Europe, and the Unsung Heroes Who Turned the Tide of War- Lynne Olson
Random House
Release Date: April 25, 2017

Rating (out of 5):
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: When the Nazi blitzkrieg rolled over continental Europe in the early days of World War II, the city of London became a refuge for the governments and armed forces of six occupied nations who escaped there to continue the fight. So, too, did General Charles de Gaulle, the self-appointed representative of free France.     

As the only European democracy still holding out against Hitler, Britain became known to occupied countries as “Last Hope Island.” Getting there, one young emigré declared, was “like getting to heaven.”

In this epic, character-driven narrative, acclaimed historian Lynne Olson takes us back to those perilous days when the British and their European guests joined forces to combat the mightiest military force in history. Here we meet the courageous King Haakon of Norway, whose distinctive “H7” monogram became a symbol of his country’s resistance to Nazi rule, and his fiery Dutch counterpart, Queen Wilhelmina, whose antifascist radio broadcasts rallied the spirits of her defeated people. Here, too, is the Earl of Suffolk, a swashbuckling British aristocrat whose rescue of two nuclear physicists from France helped make the Manhattan Project possible.

Last Hope Island also recounts some of the Europeans’ heretofore unsung exploits that helped tilt the balance against the Axis: the crucial efforts of Polish pilots during the Battle of Britain; the vital role played by French and Polish code breakers in cracking the Germans’ reputedly indecipherable Enigma code; and the flood of top-secret intelligence about German operations—gathered by spies throughout occupied Europe—that helped ensure the success of the 1944 Allied invasion.

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Last Hope Island is a powerfully written amalgamation of stories of a Europe occupied by Nazi Germany and the men, women, and governments who joined forces to resist a common enemy.  I was fascinated to learn these new aspects to World War II- many of them unknown or poorly understood by myself and (probably) many others.  Olson takes a dauntingly large saga and humanizes it, introducing us to King Haakon of Norway and the Dutch Queen Wilhemina, both standing strong against Hitler and becoming symbols of strength for their countries.  We meet heroes like Andree de Jongh and the de Nooij sisters, among others who helped smuggle Allied soldiers out to safety or hid wounded soldiers, protecting them from Nazis.  Especially important are the stories of Polish and Czech soldiers and pilots who helped turn the Battle of Britain, the Polish cryptographers who broke the "unbreakable" Enigma code and the intelligence agents who smuggled out information vital for the D-Day beach landings.

Olson does her best not to idolize or whitewash any of the history she examines.  Along with the heroic victories are plenty of defeats, and Olson takes an honest look at the British and American leaders who refused to accept assistance or believe information coming from Europeans- leading to such disasters as the Allied defeat at Arnhem in 1944.  The popular myth of Britain's Secret Service as being a brilliant and unbeatable spy operation is smashed to bits as Olson examines MI6 and the Special Operations Executive (SOE).  Originally underfunded operations recruiting young aristocrats and providing little to no training before sending them into the field, the groups seemed to put more emphasis on fighting each other for credit and funding than focusing on improving their intelligence operations to defeat Hitler. 

The BBC gets special notice in Last Hope Island, as a beacon of hope as well as providing the public with a separation from propaganda and focusing on telling the news- the truth, the whole truth, no matter how awful it might be.  I found the chapters focusing on the BBC especially poignant and inspirational because they focused on the every day, and inspiring and encouraging people through even small actions.  The story of the "avalanche of Vs" might seem like the kind of thing you'd see in a movie, but was a perfect example of how a small action could help people feel like they were not just giving up.  In a world as inundated with news as ours is, Last Hope Island helps us understand the power of the radio when it was almost the only way of connecting with the outside world.

Lynne Olson does a wonderful job of immersing the reader in the world of Occupied Europe and wartime London, and the mindset of the people living there.  Last Hope Island is a riveting book, and certainly a must-read for history lovers.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.