The Great Republic (Modern Library) Book

Drawn from uncollected speeches and articles as well as from the author's four-volume History of the English-Speaking Peoples, this anthology of the great statesman Winston Churchill's writings on American history highlights both its author's vigorous prose style and his commitment to the idea that the United States and the United Kingdom shared not only a common past but a common destiny.

As a young man, writes his namesake and grandson in his introduction, Churchill toured some of the battlefields of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and it is in writing of these two epochs and the expansionist years between them that Churchill is strongest. Of particular interest are his remarks on the ideological origins of the colonial revolution in such documents as the Magna Carta and the teachings of the Puritan elders, although, as an eminently practical politician, Churchill gives attention to less lofty causes of dissent--for instance, the English crown's logistical difficulty in governing an overseas empire with ideas of governance and resources of its own. Churchill's reflections on the Second World War are also of much value, and he provides an insider's view of the defeat of Nazism and the birth of the cold war.

Devotees of Churchill's work will not find much new here, but readers approaching him for the first time will find this volume to be a fine introduction to Churchill's writing and thought. --Gregory McNamee