Brief Book Review: Winston Churchill: Defender of the Realm

By William Manchester and Paul Reid

Summarised in one quote:

[Churchill] had occupied No. 10 for almost twenty-six months, during which time he had presided over nothing but defeats. (p.488)

In the summer of 2016, I innocently ordered a copy of Winston Churchill: Visions of Glory from Amazon. It wasn’t until an overly large box arrived in the post that I discovered this unassuming book numbers over 1,000 pages and is the first of three equally sized books published between 1983 and 2012 by William Manchester and Paul Reid. 9 months and 3,000 page turns later, I sat staring at the back cover of Manchester’s third and final book in his Churchill trilogy, having experienced some of the mighty highs and all-to frequent lows from the life of the Great Man who saved Britain from the brink of despair.

The second book, Alone [my thoughts here], tells of Churchill’s wilderness years between the two world wars, and ends on an indisputable high: After being utterly humiliated and ostracised from British parliament with no money and a dwindling reputation, Churchill is vindicated when it becomes all too clear World War Two is around the corner and he is the only man prepared to face it. With this in mind, it’s tempting to enter the book three, Defender of the Realm, expecting Churchill to come in kicking. The opposite is true. Once in power, Churchill is knocked down, again and again, from all sides, for years.

I was stunned to transition through Britain’s unerring string of defeats at the hands of the Axis (Germany, Italy, Japan) long after Britain enters the war. The fall of France is merely the appetiser. There are so many defeats in fact that I started doubting whether the Allies ended up winning after all. What I now understand is it’s a vision of determination and optimism in the face of overwhelming odds and constant set backs that solidifies Churchill’s legacy, and there is no better way to appreciate this than picking up Defender of the Realm.

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