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Lädt ... The Splendid and the Vile (2021. Auflage)von Erik Larson (Autor)
Werk-InformationenThe Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz von Erik Larson
Lädt ...
Melde dich bei LibraryThing an um herauszufinden, ob du dieses Buch mögen würdest. Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch. [water damaged hardback] BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS (Print: 2/25/ 2020; 978-0385348713; Crown; First Edition; 608 pp. (including list of references)) (Digital: Yes.) Audio: 1/22/2002; 978-0593167182; Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group; Unabridged; Duration 17:57:21 (15 parts); Unabridged. (Film: no. at least not yet). SERIES: No CHARACTERS: (Not comprehensive) Winston S. Churchill – Prime Minister of Britain. Clementine (pronounced Clementeen) Churchill – Winston’s wife. Mary Churchill – Winston’s youngest living daughter—17 at the commencing focal time of this book, 1940. Diana Churchill Sandys – Winston’s eldest daughter – 30 at the commencing focal time of this book, 1940. Duncan Sandys – Diana’s husband. Sarah (Mule) Churchill – The second daughter – age 25 at the commencing focal time of this book, 1940. (an actress) Vic Oliver – Sarah’s husband – age 41 (an Austrian actor) Randolph Churchill – 4th child of Winston and Clementine – age 28 at the commencing focal time of this book, 1940. Pamela Digby Churchill – Randolph’s new bride from the year before the commencing focal time of this book – age 20. Judith Ventia Montagu – Mary’s close cousin – age 17. Walter Henry Thompson – Scotland Yard’s Special Branch Detective (“a ‘dogsbody’, in the parlance of the time.”) John (Jock) Colville – Assistant private secretary to Prime Minister Chamberlain, and then to Winston. King George VI Queen Elizabeth Neville Chamberlain – former Prime Minister of Britain Franklin D. Roosevelt – U.S. President Joseph Kennedy – American ambassador to Britain Lord Halifax – Foreign secretary Hastings (Pug) Ismay – General military chief of staff (William) Averell Harriman – Franklin’s special envoy to Europe (and Pamela’s love interest) Robert Meiklejohn – Harriman’s secretary. William Maxwell Aitkin - Lord Beaverbrook – Minister of Aircraft Production Frederick Lindemann – 1st Viscount Cherwell – British physicist – prime scientific advisor to Winston. Harry Lloyd Hopkins – Franklin’s advisor on foreign policy – supervised the Lend-Lease program of military aid to the Allies. Adolf Hitler- Austrian-born German politician – dictator or Germany – leader of the Nazi Party. Joseph Goebbels – Hitler’s chief propagandist Rudolf Walter Richard Hess – Adolf’s Deputy Fuhrer Hermann Goring - Chairman of a new six-person Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich SUMMARY/ EVALUATION: Erik tells us that he didn’t truly comprehend the affect of 911 on New Yorkers until he moved to Manhattan and lived among those whose homeland was attacked, and it started him pondering, how Londoners withstood 57 straight days of bombing….and so he had to research it and share it with us. A generous gesture indeed. He adds a lot of fact and texture to the stories of the many lives we are, to varying degrees, familiar with. One of the many issues this book led me to consider, was America’s resistance to assist Britain in its struggle against a hostile take-over by a country lusting for blood, even of its own citizens, until America itself was attacked. For me, it fueled my belief that sometimes security and comfort can instill a false sense of superiority. It seems that is easier to be a moralist (war—sending one’s citizens to kill and be killed—is evil) when one is comfortable and under no threat. When, in retrospect at least, it seems the evil was in making no effort to protect Allied countries from being overrun, terrorized and crushed by a country with no regard for humanity eager to instill fear and suffering, and supplant cultures of rich intellect, beauty, and joy, built over centuries, with what would have amounted to hostile enslavement, until the threat arrived at our own front door. I’m sure there were factors of which I am unaware, and hindsight if 20 20 vision, but I’m just sayin’. If, like me, you enjoy audio books, this one is masterfully narrated by one of my favorite narrators, John Lee. But pick up a copy of the book and read the acknowledgements, because, like the forward (entitled, “A Note to Readers”), it is an essential part of Erik’s story-telling genius in this work. AUTHOR: Erik Larson (1/3/1954). According to the book’s end fly-leaf, “Erik Larson is the author of five national bestsellers: Dead Wake [read it], In the Garden of Beasts [read it], Thunderstruck [read it], The Devil in the White City [read it], and Isaac’s storm [what? I missed one?] which have collectively sold more than 9 million copies. His books have been published in nearly twenty countries [nearly?].” NARRATOR(S): John [Rafter] Lee. As I mentioned in my last review where John was the narrator, oddly, Wikipedia and IMDb (Wikipedia’s source, so no wonder) make no mention of the many books John has narrated, but instead list his filmography (nothing I have seen, but probably because he is British), television roles, and video game roles. Apparently, he is also a playwright and producer. GENRE: Non-fiction, history, biography LOCATIONS: London, Chequers, 10 Downing Street TIME FRAME: 1940-1941 SUBJECTS: WWII, 1939-1945; Bletchley code breakers; Radar; fighter planes; bombs; family; romance; London; community; resilience; finances; foreign relations; America’s attitude toward joining WWII; Churchill, Winston, 1874-1965; Prime Ministers; Great Britain; Campaigns; Social aspects of WWII in Britain DEDICATION: “To David Woodrum –for secret reasons” SAMPLE QUOTATION: “’All of a sudden about midnight [I] heard a rain of objects on the roof and against the building and saw bright flashing blue lights through the drawn curtains, he wrote in his diary. ‘Took a look out and saw dozens of incendiaries sputtering around in the street and small park below, making a bluish light like electric sparks, my first close contact with incendiaries.’ As he watched, he heard noises in the hall and found that his neighbors were heading down to the shelter in the building’s basement. A visiting airman had advised them that incendiaries were invariably followed by bombs. ‘I took the hint,’ Meiklejohn wrote. He put on his treasured fur coat---‘I didn’t want it to get blitzed.’—and headed downstairs to begin his first-ever night in a shelter. Soon high-explosive bombs began to fall. At one A.M. a bomb landed just beyond a corner of the building, igniting a gas main that lit the night so brightly, Meiklejohn believed he could have read a newspaper by its light. ‘This caused considerable stir among those who knew what it was all about,’ he wrote, ‘because it was almost a sure thing that the bombers would concentrate on us with the fires as a target.’ More incendiaries fell. ‘Then the bombs started coming down fast after a while, in ‘sticks’ of three and six that sounded like gun salvos.’ The upper floors of neighboring buildings caught fire. Detonations shook the building. Several times during lulls in the bombing, Meiklejohn and a trio of U.S. Army officers left the building to examine the accumulating damage, careful not to venture more than a block away.” RATING: 5 stars. It must have been such a tremendous challenge to weave so many quotes from diaries, correspondences, reports, and what-not, from such a huge cast of characters, into so robustly comprehensive and cohesive a rendering of these lives and times; striving, all the while, to add unique and as-yet untold peeks into the hearts and souls of those who shepherded nations through the war and into the future, with such panache. STARTED-FINISHED 7/7/21 - 8/8/21 keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen
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"The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers a fresh and compelling portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz On Winston Churchill's first day as prime minister, 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 the 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 cadre of close advisers who comprised Churchill's "Secret Circle," including his lovestruck private secretary, John Colville; newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook; and the Rasputin-like Frederick Lindemann. 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."-- Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)940.54History and Geography Europe Europe 1918- Military History Of World War IIKlassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
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