The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz Paperback – February 15, 2022

Outstanding biographical portrait of Winston Churchill's first year as Prime Minister of Great Britain. This is also the year of "The Blitz": the Nazi Germany Luftwaffe's sustained air attack of Great Britain-specifically England and Scotland. While all of England and parts of Scotland were bombed, London, as the capital of England, sustained constant devastating bombing. Larson's book describes Winston Churchill's experience by using the words and stories of his family, friends, employees, political allies and enemies, and interestingly, his war allies and enemies. Larson is able to provide a detailed portrait of Great Britain's first year at war, from the details of Britain's Exploratory Forces and the evacuation at Dunkirk to the defeat at Tofrek and finally, the presence of the United States in the war, from the transfer of 50 ships of questionable value in return for the use of Great Britain's naval bases to the emergence of Roosevelt's Lend-Lease program, until finally, the entrance of the U.S. in the war as after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Post Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt declared war on Japan, and Germany, as part of the Axis powers: Germany, Italy, and Japan, declared war on the United States. One of the most interesting details about the book is that Larson ends the book just as the U.S. enters the war.Although the book is well-documented non-fiction, it reads like a novel. The impressions that present in form of dialogue documented in published papers and books in addition to quotations from the diaries and journals of Churchill's family and subordinates as well as the recorded wartime impressions from more both famous literary figures and more ordinary Englishpeople.Larson does an excellent job detailing the nuances of numerous relationships in the book without making the book overly complicated or confusing. The way he chronicles Churchill's courtship of Roosevelt is fascinating; as are the relationships of Pamela Digby Churchill (Harriman), his daughter cinemas, who carried out an affair with W. Averell Harriman, Roosevelt's special envoy to Churchill and subsequently, Station. (In a fascinating turn of events, Pamela and Harriman end up marrying each other much later in life). Detailed portrayals of the people surrounding Churchill are fascinating, and Larson explores Churchill's relationships with the people surrounding him, rather like planets orbiting the sun. Winston Churchill, who carried the weight of Great Britain (and some would say the free world) during WWIi, was an interesting, complex, and brilliant man, though certainly flawed. As a leader, he roseto a challenge that seemed insurmountable. Churchill had the ability to inspire people that few could match. Extraordinarily, this ability was perhaps matched by one of his contemporaries, F.D.R. Without these two men as leaders during WWII, it is questionable whether democracy would have prevailed at the conclusion of the war. Erik Larson's The Splendid and Vile captures his subject, Winston Churchill, in a brilliant and interesting way. I highly recommend this book.

I love the quotes and use of personal diaries. Really enjoy the authors writing style. I love history and when I received this book as a gift I felt like I had already learned just about everything about Churchill and England's battle to survive. I was wrong and was so happy to learn more! Love this book and really enjoyed this book!

This book traces a year, week by week, in the life of Winston Churchill. It begins when Churchill takes the mantle of Prime Minister and shoulders the burden of England’s war effort. As the year progresses, Larson traces the lives of Churchill’s family, closest advisors, and assistants while also keeping an eye on the actions of Goebbels, Goring, and Hitler. A primary focus is the bombing program against London. Larson keeps an eye on the logistics of Churchill’s life as well as those of the British war effort. He also invests a lot of attention toward the personal and social lives of these key players and makes extensive use of personal journals to keep the focus on the human impact of the war.The book helped to explain the development of technologies, ideas, and various conflicts. One thread that I found particularly helpful to trace was America’s involvement in offering aid to Great Britain. While week by week hundreds of civilians are being bombarded and dying, American aloofness must have been agonizing to Churchill and the British populace. Also agonizing must have been the wait for the Lend Lease Act to be passed. This act, which I had only known in name prior to my reading, allowed America to leverage its resources with repayment assured only for damaged property. Larson used the analogy of lending a neighbor a hose when his house is on fire. You don’t sit down and negotiate the terms and cost of hose usage, you give him the hose. Then, if it is burned up in the firefight, you can talk remuneration after the fire has been doused. So too would the Lend Lease Act make some of America’s resources available to our British allies.In reading the book, aside from specific actions on specific days, I didn’t learn much new information about Churchill. A great orator, indefatigable, an embracer of life, a drinker, a man with a temper, stalwart, a bit of an eccentric. Some interesting tidbits were sprinkled throughout such as his proclivity for working from the bathtub and the bed, but no deeper, heretofore unknown depths of character were uncovered.Having read two other books by Larson, Devil in the White City and Thunderstruck, I was glad to find a better organized story in this book. Chronology was clear and themes developed slowly but organically. Overall, I am left with a clearer understanding of Churchill as a man and military leader and a greater appreciation for the human impact of war. In the midst of truly prodigious bombing, the citizens of Great Britain carried on with their lives, withstood, endured. It seemed that every person, in one way or another, paid a terrible price and yet the result was triumph in the face of evil.GRADE: B+

Winston Churchill was, arguably, one of the more extraordinary figures of modern British history. His life covered parts of two centuries wherein he was, variously, a journalist, politician, soldier, author and prime minister.Erik Larson’s “The Splendid and the Vile” focusses on a brief but compelling period of Churchill’s long life; namely, the first year of his prime ministership. By and large, this was a period of many failures as Britain (and its empire) stood alone against the Nazi threat. It was also the period when Churchill was at his most pugnacious. He was the man for the occasion. Perhaps no other Briton could have stood in his place.As a work of history, the book reads almost as a thriller. It certainly captured this reader’s attention…and held it!The book is an intimate portrayal of Churchill’s life. We are introduced to his family, his daily troubles, his failures and his (comparatively few) triumphs. If I was to find one criticism of the book it’s that the politics of the time was largely ignored. Clement Atlee receives only one mention and that on the book’s penultimate page. But this aside, the book is a riveting read and a significant addition to the seemingly endless library of Churchill books.Recommended.