Truly this was a great man.“England’s new leader…would have to be a passionate Manichaean who saw the world as a medieval struggle to the death between the powers of good and the powers of evil, who held that individuals are responsible for their actions and that the German dictator was therefore wicked. Winston's genius with its tongue is revelled in through the book in extensive brief quotes. William Manchester does not shy away from a critical consideration of Churchill's jingoism, egoism, changing positions, et cetera, but nonetheless the figure that arises from imperial boyhood into a peerage long sought - and influence - is right in all of the big things as his changing nation faces the new century. _The Last Lion_ is a famous biographical work.
It soon ceases to do anything but enhance the natural interest of the material. Brown's voice is appropriate to the age covered in the book - almost over the top by today's standards, but I believe you'll find it perfectly natural before long. one can't wait to see what will happen next. In my experience it's impossible to stop the playback. Perhaps you will be tempted to tune in to Richard Brown's reading of _The Last Lion_, as I have. Both books are great though I slightly preferred the first volume. I know it will take close to 80 hours to listen to both, but the time will fly and you will wish you could listen to Volume III, which was unfortunately never written. Volume II has the obvious advantage of fleshing out the rise of Hitler and explaining how the Appeasers were a product of their times. This is a time of which I knew little relative to what came before and after. Volume I pluses include a better narrator (***** vs ****) (I was impressed with his mature Churchill voice and amazed that he started with a good child Churchill and gradually aged him into the famous voice we all love!), a more narrative/chronological layout as opposed to more topical, and illumination of the transition of the Victorian age through WWI and up to the Depression. I doubt too many will be able to read Volume I without soon proceeding to Volume II.
What's not to like? Both volumes have advantages over the other (listed below), but bottom line is that both are marvelous works. This is a well narrated story written by what has been described as the best biographer of the 20th Century about a man who was perhaps the greatest man to live in the 20th Century. I am writing this review for both volumes and putting it in both places. Superb - Review of Both Volume I & Volume II
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