Synopses & Reviews
Carlo D'Este's brilliant new biography examines Winston Churchill through the prism of his military service as both a soldier and a warlord: a descendant of Marlborough who, despite never having risen above the rank of lieutenant colonel, came eventually at age sixty-five to direct Britain's military campaigns as prime minister and defeated Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito for the democracies.
Warlord is the definitive chronicle of Churchill's crucial role as one of the world's most renowned military leaders, from his early adventures on the North-West Frontier of colonial India and the Boer War through his extraordinary service in both World Wars.
Even though Churchill became one of the towering political leaders of the twentieth century, his childhood ambition was to be a soldier. Using extensive, untapped archival materials, D'Este reveals important and untold observations from Churchill's personal physician, as well as other colleagues and family members, in order to illuminate his character as never before. Warlord explores Churchill's strategies behind the major military campaigns of World War I and World War II—both his dazzling successes and disastrous failures—while also revealing his tumultuous relationships with his generals and other commanders, including Dwight D. Eisenhower.
As riveting as the man it portrays, Warlord is a masterful, unsparing portrait of one of history's most fascinating and influential leaders during what was arguably the most crucial event in human history.
Review
“Carlo dEste, one of the finest historians of the Second World War, brings to his new book all his skills as a military analyst. Even those who think Churchills life familiar will find this a wonderfully stimulating study.” Max Hastings
Review
“Winston Churchills life spanned the last decades of the British Empire, and to read Carlo DEstes enjoyable new biography is to recall the sequence of disasters that befell Britain between the final days of the Victorian era and its brush with extinction in World War II.” Robert Kagan, The New York Times Book Review
Review
“Carlo DEste, among our very best military historians, has found in Winston Churchill a subject worthy of his talent. Warlord takes the familiar subject of Churchills amazing life and makes it glitter anew.” Rick Atkinson
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“An engaging narrative. . . . Well-researched, balanced, and highly readable. . . . Carlo DEste provides us with a very human look at Churchills lifelong fascination with soldiering, war, and command . . . with an eye for colorful quotation and telling anecdote.” The Washington Post
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“Elegantly written, this tour de force belongs in every library addressing the 20th century. . . . DEste is a master analyst of 20th-century military leadership, and this book may be his finest yet. . . . He tells the complex story of a statesman and warrior.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review
“Masterful. . . . DEste provides a blow by blow on all of the events of World War II. He is especially good at rendering the devastation Britain faced during the Blitz and the preparations for the Normandy Invasion.” The Chicago Sun-Times
Review
“Epic. . . . A briliantly exciting narrative. . . . DEste has given us, finally, the lion not only in winter, but at war: impetuous, brazen, misguided, but indefatigable, indomitable, and magnanimous: the greatest and most energetic generalissimo of the 20th century.” Nigel Hamilton, The Boston Globe
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“DEste astutely lauds Churchills soldierly courage but questions how Churchill-the-politician acted as, in effect, an operational general.” Booklist (starred review)
Review
“The many biographies of Winston Churchill have tended to paint him from a political perspective. In his new book, military historian Carlo DEste shifts the focus onto Churchill the military leader and how his passion for wartime endeavors led to the improbable British victory in the Allied cause.” History Wire
About the Author
Carlo D'Este, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and a distinguished military historian, is the author of the acclaimed biographies Patton: A Genius for War and Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life, among other books on World War II. He lives in Massachusetts.