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THE PRIVATE LIVES OF WINSTON CHURCHILL

Name: THE PRIVATE LIVES OF WINSTON CHURCHILL
Author: John Pearson
ISBN: 0-671-63153-5

by John Pearson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 18, 1991

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It may be hard to write anything new about Winston Churchill, but it is even harder to write anything dull about him, as Pearson (The Selling Of the Royal Family, 1986; The Serpent and the Stag, 1984, etc.) proves again here. Pearson's inquiry into Churchill's private life began with his interest in the tragic deaths of three of Churchill's four children: Diana, who killed herself, and Randolph and Sarah, whose drunken escapades became notorious. Mary, the wife of successful Tory politician Christopher Soames, was the only one of Churchill's children to lead a balanced, normal life. Why? Pearson has found some obvious answers, and some more unexpected. It is well known that Churchill's father, Lord Randolph, gave little attention to his son, whom he thought stupid, leaving Winston with an enduring need to prove himself. It is less well known that, as Pearson reveals, Churchill's wife, Clementine, was probably the daughter of one of her mother's lovers, perhaps even, by an irony, a man who was also a lover of Churchill's mother. Churchill's desire to provide a more loving family environment was negated by his ambitions and way of life, and by Clementine, whose energy and interest in her children were never very great. As a result, the children alternated between outrageous pampering, little discipline, and outright neglect. The love affair between Winston and Clementine, often portrayed as idyllic, appears to have been something less than that, with Clementine often overwhelmed by her husband's galvanic energies, deep depressions, boisterous friends, and reckless spending. The explanation for all this may be found more in the conventions of the Victorian era and in the selfishness of a man of towering ambition than in the ``cunning and ruthlessness of the egomaniacal genius'' depicted in the publisher's blurb, but Pearson offers solid insight into one of the most remarkable public men of the century. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs—not seen.)

Pub Date: Oct. 18, 1991

ISBN: 0-671-63153-5

Page Count: 640

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1991

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HISTORICAL & MILITARY

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THE 48 LAWS OF POWER

by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

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The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.

Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-670-88146-5

Page Count: 430

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAWS OF HUMAN NATURE
by Robert Greene

- BOOK REVIEW
MASTERY
by Robert Greene

- BOOK TO SCREEN
Drake Producing 48 Laws of Power Show

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IN MY PLACE

by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992

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From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)