Harold Macmillan (1894–1986)

On the last day of 1942 Harold Macmillan left England to take up his post as British Minister Resident in North Africa. With him he had his Private Secretary, John Wyndham, two secretaries, and two typewriters prudently stolen from the ColoniaI Office. By the time he relinquished this office, in May 1945, he was responsible for British policy in the Mediterranean area, which included Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece and the Balkans as well as North Africa.
Harold Macmillan has already told the history of the war in the Mediterranean during this period in The Blastof War; where the reader will find a lucid exposition of the great crises of the time; but the diaries reveal something rather different. Events did not happen in an orderly sequence. Usually several crises were going on at once, and could only be coped with by flying back and forth in excruciatingly uncomfortable military aeroplanes.
The diaries, which were begun almost casually as letters home to his wife, soon became a regular daily journal. They are considerably augmented from other documents written at the time and give a vivid picture of Macmillan's life: the strange mixture of grandeur and austerity, of crises and tedium. At one moment recovery from illness and reading Jane Austen in bed, at another disposing of great events; relishing the visual impact oft he North African countryside, or touring he war-ravaged landscape of Sicily and Italy. These diaries not only provide a historical record of a very unusual experience at a turning point in the Second World War, but are also a personal memoir in which the dramatis personae range frorn the familiar figures of Churchill bellowing indiscretions on the telephone and De Gaulle unpredictable in everything but his chain-smoking to the calm but effective Eisenhower
These two and a half years of the war established Macmillan as a senior and able politician and laid the ground for his political ascendancy in later years. It is a fascinating insight into his own personality and into the strategy of the SecondWorld War in Europe.
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Harold Macmillan, responsabile della politica britannica nell'area del Mediterraneo, attraverso i suoi diari, iniziati casualmente come lettere inviate alla moglie e diventate poi un vero e proprio "daily journal", ci fornisce una vivida fotografia della sua vita di quegli anni. I diari, però, non rappresentano solo una testimonianza di un momento fondamentale della Seconda Guerra mondiale, ma raccontano anche le strategie della Guerra e riportano interessanti indiscrezioni su figure di spicco quali Churchill, De Gaulle e Eisenhower.… (mehr)

This second volume of Harold's memoirs gives a very insightful but somewhat different view of the most written about seven years of the 20th century but it is not just a 'history' lesson. Because it was written 'after the event' from the author's daily diaries, Harold reveals some hitherto obscure confrontations between famous political and military leaders of this time. It’s a reasonably easy and essential read for all students of WWII history and along with the other volumes, reveals more of the character of this famous political leader of the twentieth century. This edition features a map of Europe on the inside front piece cover and a timeline of WWII on the inside end piece cover. There are 36 b&w illustrations, 4 maps and an index.… (mehr)

1430 Winds of Change 1914-1939, by Harold MacMillan (read 9 Jan 1977) This is the first volume of his memoirs. He was born Feb 10, 1894, in London to the publishing family. He was wounded in 1916 in the Great War (which before he got to the front he was afraid would be over before he got into it!). He entered parliament in 1924. This book only goes to Sept 3, 1939 and the last part is devoted to those odd and amazing years just before that date. I always think the events of those years so "clear" in my mind that I don't think reading about them is too absorbing, even though there is much behind the scenes that I never knew of. Anyway, I decided the work was so non-objective that, perhaps unwisely, I have never read the other volumes of his autobiography.… (mehr)