One Christmas in Washington


Book Description

Herwig and Bercuson grippingly recreate the dramatic days of the Washington War Conference of 1941-42, using the diaries, meeting notes and personal letters of the key characters. One Christmas in Washington is the authoritative and emotional story of two proud and accomplished men struggling to overcome their own biases, suspicion, and hubris to create what turned out to be a war-winning alliance.




The Cairo Conference of 1943


Book Description

For four days in November 1943, Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang Kai-shek met in Cairo to discuss the future of the war in the China-Burma-India Theater and plans for the ultimate defeat of Japan. This would be the first and last time that these leaders would meet. This book chronicles the Cairo Conference, the events leading up to the conference, and the consequences of the decisions, understandings and misunderstandings that resulted from the summit. The only book-length study of the subject, this text examines the enormous impact the conference had on the course of the war in Asia and post-war Sino-Western relations.




Meeting Churchill


Book Description

This insightful portrait of Winston Churchill delves beyond well-known political moments, incorporating perspectives from various individuals who encountered him throughout his life. From Bletchley Park codebreakers and Hollywood stars such as Charlie Chaplin, through writers as varied as H. G. Wells and P. G. Wodehouse, to the likes of Harold Wilson, Mahatma Gandhi and Queen Elizabeth II, these lesser-known interactions reveal glimpses of the man behind the legend. We meet Churchill the exuberant schoolboy thug with an early mania for bull-dogs, and Churchill the elder statesman shedding a tear in the House of Commons smoking room. Other incidents include a young journalist rudely dismissing a call from Churchill as a prank, and a visiting Dwight D. Eisenhower dreaming of being strangled, only to awake entangled in Churchill’s borrowed nightshirt. The book showcases the profound transformations during Churchill’s lifetime, which ran from Benjamin Disraeli’s premiership to the release of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Route 66’, and the shift from steam to atomic power. Examining controversial aspects of his legacy, this multifaceted portrait challenges preconceived notions, inviting readers to reconsider the complexities of Churchill.




The Daughters of Yalta


Book Description

"The story of the fascinating and fateful "daughter diplomacy" of Anna Roosevelt, Sarah Churchill, and Kathleen Harriman, three glamorous young women who accompanied their famous fathers to the Yalta Conference with Stalin in the waning days of World War II"--




How Churchill Waged War


Book Description

An analytical investigation into Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s decision-making process during every stage of World War II. When Winston Churchill accepted the position of Prime Minister in May 1940, he insisted in also becoming Minister of Defence. This, though, meant that he alone would be responsible for the success or failure of Britain’s war effort. It also meant that he would be faced with many monumental challenges and utterly crucial decisions upon which the fate of Britain and the free world rested. With the limited resources available to the UK, Churchill had to pinpoint where his country’s priorities lay. He had to respond to the collapse of France, decide if Britain should adopt a defensive or offensive strategy, choose if Egypt and the war in North Africa should take precedence over Singapore and the UK’s empire in the East, determine how much support to give the Soviet Union, and how much power to give the United States in controlling the direction of the war. In this insightful investigation into Churchill’s conduct during the Second World War, Allen Packwood, BA, MPhil (Cantab), FRHistS, the Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, enables the reader to share the agonies and uncertainties faced by Churchill at each crucial stage of the war. How Churchill responded to each challenge is analyzed in great detail and the conclusions Packwood draws are as uncompromising as those made by Britain’s wartime leader as he negotiated his country through its darkest days.




Europe Unite


Book Description

The second volume in this collection of the prime minister’s oratory contains the post-war speeches that stoked patriotic fire in the waning days of Empire. Legendary politician and military strategist Sir Winston Churchill was a master not only of the battlefield, but of the page and the podium. Over the course of forty books and countless speeches, broadcasts, news items and more, he addressed a country at war and at peace, thrilling with victory but uneasy with its shifting role on the global stage. In 1953, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for “his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.” During his lifetime, he enthralled readers and brought crowds roaring to their feet; in the years since his death, his masterful writing has inspired generations of eager history buffs. From 1945 to 1951, Churchill held fast to the political influence he had gained during World War II, serving as leader of the Opposition—the minority party in the English government. While some saw this new position as a demotion for a once-great political leader, he embraced the moment with all his might, addressing a nation triumphant in victory but increasingly aware that its long history of Imperial domination was coming to an end. Even at this moment of relative calm in his career, Churchill’s rousing oratory still shines with brilliance and wit.




Eight Days at Yalta


Book Description

The authoritative history of the pivotal conference between Allied leaders at the close of WWII, based on revealing firsthand accounts. Crimea, 1945. As the last battles of WWII were fought, US President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin—the so-called “Big Three” —met in the Crimean resort town of Yalta. Over eight days of bargaining, bombast, and intermittent bonhomie, they decided on the endgame of the war against Nazi Germany and how the defeated nation should be governed. They also worked out the constitution of the nascent United Nations; the price of Soviet entry into the war against Japan; the new borders of Poland; and spheres of influence across Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Greece. Drawing on the lively accounts of those who were there—from the leaders and advisors such as Averell Harriman, Anthony Eden, and Andrei Gromyko, to Churchill’s secretary Marian Holmes and FDR’s daughter Anna Boettiger—Diana Preston has crafted a masterful chronicle of the conference that created the post-war world. Who “won” Yalta has been debated ever since. After Germany’s surrender, Churchill wrote to the new president, Harry Truman, of “an iron curtain” that was now “drawn upon [the Soviets’] front.” Knowing his troops controlled eastern Europe, Stalin’s judgment in April 1945 thus speaks volumes: “Whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system.”




Secret Session Speeches


Book Description

This collection of addresses to the House of Commons during WWII provides unique insight into the British Prime Minister’s wartime leadership. During World War II, security was so precarious that the House of Commons was at times forced to meet in secret in order to keep its counsel from reaching the enemy. On five separate occasions between 1940 and 1942, Winston Churchill addressed the secret assembly. Those fateful speeches are reproduced in this collection. Here, Churchill delivers his immediate reactions to the fall of France, the discovery of a vast enemy armada in the English Channel, and the fall of Singapore, which may have been the most heartbreaking and costly military failure of Churchill's career. These speeches offer intimate insight into Churchill's thinking in this highly consequential period. Originally published in 1945, Secret Sessions Speeches provides fascinating context to some of World War II's most significant events—and continue to carry great weight and meaning today.




MEETING CHURCHILL


Book Description




Atlantic Meeting


Book Description

Morton's account of attending the 1941 Atlantic Treaty meeting between President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill which established the Allied policy for post-World War II Europe In August 1941 Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt met secretly on HMS The Prince of Wales, moored just off the coast of Newfoundland. H. V. Morton was invited to accompany the Prime Minister and his entourage, a trip which was not without its hazards. This is a unique account of the events leading up to Churchill's discussions with Roosevelt and a fascinating account of the practicalities--and occasionally humor--involved in such a perilous journey. Only a handful of people knew Churchill had left Britain and in America the press merely reported that Roosevelt was enjoying a few days' away from Washington, fishing. The Atlantic Treaty, while not achieving all that Churchill had hoped for, was a key document in the development of the war and post-war strategy. Churchill had hoped that at the resolution of the meeting the U.S. would join the war during the summer of 1941, but this was not to be. H. V. Morton's account was not released for publication until 1943 and subsequently numerous documents have been made available at the National Archives. A new appendix lists these together with a chronology and detailed bibliographies of the key figures who participated in the discussions.