Book I'm Reading: Umberto Eco's HIstory of Beauty, John Colville's The Fringes of Power

I've recently finished two very long books, History of Beauty (Rizzoli International Publications, 2004), edited by Umberto Eco, at 230 pages (there is a lot of very small print), and John Colville's The Fringes of Power (W. W. Norton, 1985), subtitled "10 Downing Street Diaries 1939-1955," at 725 pages of main text (with another 70 pages of biographical notes and a glossary).

Eco edited History of Beauty, which is a collection of short essays on ideas about beauty through history, each illustrated with numerous color plates and supplemented by excerpts from contemporary writing. He begins with a chapter headed "The Aesthetic Ideal in Ancient Greece" and ends with one called The Beauty of the Media" that looks at how film, TV, and advertising have influenced ideas about beauty. Some sections are thematic, some focus on movements in art. The reader is mostly left to draw his or her own conclusions about what beauty means from the broad survey of examples presented. Beautifully illustrated and a pleasure to look at, but at times the very small print and lack of any central thesis made a straight read-through a bit tedious. Having said that, the various sections of the book could be read in virtually any order. Worth the time, but perhaps best considered a reference book.

The Fringes of Power, too, is a bit disjointed, but, being mainly a diary, that's perhaps to be expected. It begins with the author finding himself "twenty-four years old, a Third Secretary in the Diplomatic Service of two years' standing" and thinking at the outbreak of WWII in 1939 that it might be best to resign from the foreign service before his job became what was called a "reserved occupation" from which it would become impossible to exit before the end of the war. He decides to stay on and notes in his preface "Unsure of what was going to happen, I decided to keep a diary." Not long after the start of hostilities, he is seconded to 10 Downing Street from the Foreign Office and for the entire duration of the war (and beyond) he acts as Winston Churchill's private secretary.

Colville describes himself, again in the preface, thus: "...the money saved by my parents' carefulness (which never verged on meanness) went on providing their three sons with the best and most expensive education available; and though they were far from being cadgers, they had enough devoted friends and relations to provide their children with pheasants to shoot, horses to ride, yachts in which to race and pleasant country houses in which to stay.

"Thus in 1936, when I came down from Trinity College, at the age of twenty-one, I had not been stinted of pleasures and had even, in the days when travel was still an adventure, been to the Soviet Union, steamed down the Danube in a barge, crossed Asia Minor in a third-class railway carriage, spent ten days as a guest in the monasteries of Mount Athos and learned to speak both French and German with fluency. I had also won two scholarships. However, I was well aware that I must soon earn my living with greater urgency than some of my university friends."

While Colville did not come from great wealth, perhaps, his family was comfortable and with numerous connections to people of the upper classes. While at times he sounds a trifle snobbish (particularly to an American) his is the perspective of a man with the kind of education and breeding that it might be nice to see in people in public service again, and some of the most interesting comments he makes are about the US generals and politicians he and Churchill work with when dealing with the United States, particularly later in the war. The Americans, if not laughed at, are generally regarded as sincere but poorly educated and naive.

There is much of interest here about Churchill the man—his quirky habits, in particular—and about the workings of Parliament. The deep respect for and expectation of fine oratory in the House of Commons obvious in the time and effort Churchill and the author put into speech writing will probably seem alien to those of us used to US politicians and, especially today, when we are led (if that's the right word) by a man who is obviously both of limited mental capacity and limited education. If Eisenhower seemed sincere but poorly informed to Colville, how would he have characterized a Mr. Trump?

Some of the diary will sound like gossip—Colville rarely misses an opportunity to comment on the beauty, charm, or intelligence (or the lack of any of these) of the women he meets or on the effectiveness (or lack of it) of the politicians he works with. There is quite a bit about behind-the-scenes maneuvering among the politicians of the day. The coverage is uneven, and there are some startling omissions. For example, while there is a great deal of comment on Churchill's efforts to push Roosevelt into providing Britain with more aid in the early stages of the war,  the attack on Pearl Harbor that finally precipitated US war participation is not even mentioned. The atomic bomb is barely noted. That said, a very interesting and entertaining read, not least because of the writer's excellent writing style, a product, no doubt, of that expensive education. Recommended.

Books I'm Reading: Triumph and Tragedy (January 17, 2013)

At nearly 600 pages, Triumph and Tragedy, the sixth and last volume in Winston Churchill's history of WWII, is one of the shorter volumes. It moves at a much faster pace than any of the earlier ones, with more about politics than military operations, but it's no less interesting for that.

Triumph and Tragedy is in two sections, the first, beginning with the D-Day invasion, takes us through the end of the fighting in Europe and then the final stages of the war in the Pacific. The second treats the aftermath of the armed world conflict, particularly dealing with Stalin and the question of how to balance Soviet claims to Polish territory with Polish claims to German territory. In other words, Churchill describes the triumph of the victories over Germany and Japan and the tragedy of how the aftermath of the global conflict played out. He makes it clear that he feels the partitioning of Germany into zones of influence administered by Germany, France, the US, and the Soviet Union could have been handled far better than it was. The second half of the book is largely a chronicle of Churchill's frustration. Throughout the six volumes, but particularly in this one, the clarity of his vision regarding the Soviets is remarkable. He saw the falling of the iron curtain long before it happened, and it happened much the way he warned it would.

Books I'm Reading: Winston Churchill's Closing the Ring (December 26, 2012)

Closing the Ring, volume five of Winston Churchill's six-volume history of WWII, The Second World War, is the shortest of the six volumes, at about 640 pages, but it is as interesting as the preceding volumes. Closing the Ring takes the reader from June 1943 to June 1944--to the eve of "Overlord," the Normandy landings that opened a second major front in Europe. Perhaps the central event of the period was the shift of Italy from the Axis side of the conflict to the side of the Allies, with the successful invasion of Sicily and the overthrow of Mussolini. In the Pacific theater, Japan is no longer expanding but instead struggling to maintain control of the vast area her armies had conquered.

Much of the volume deals with the conferences among the allies at Quebec, Washington, and Tehran held to unify strategy, mostly centering on the ongoing preparations for the Normandy invasion. Sections dealing with actual fighting focus on the above-mentioned progress against Japan and events in Greece and Italy (mainly Anzio and Cassino), as well as the fighting around Imphal, in India.

Perhaps of greatest interest in this volume is the drama surrounding the British, US, and Soviet discussions about whether to stage a diversionary attack in the south of France (up the Rhone Valley) in conjunction with the Normandy invasion and the timing of such an attack. The southern invasion was conceived at the Tehran conference as a means of keeping German forces pinned down in the south and away from the struggle anticipated on the northern beaches of France as "Overloard" began. Churchill sees a stubborn US attachment to the southern invasion plan, known as "Anvil," at the expense of making further advances in Italy (and after conditions have changed) as a mistake in strategy (conditions were no longer what they had been at the time of the Tehran discussions--in particular, progress in Italy had been much slower than anticipated). Churchill believed also that the Rhone Valley was too far from Normandy to be an effective diversion anyway--better to press ahead in Italy while concentrating in France on "Overlord." In this volume, we begin to see growing American muscle overshadowing British contributions, and Churchill's frustration and annoyance at US influence are at times palpable--which is not to say that he is ungracious; he remains single-mindedly focused on winning the war by whatever means--but ultimately the US view prevailed over what Churchill saw as a superior plan. Closing the Ring, like the preceding volumes is well-written, detailed, and insightful, but I sensed Churchill's energy beginning to wane, and he paints with rather broader strokes here than in earlier volumes. Nevertheless, another worthy installment. On to the sixth and final volume....

Books I'm Reading: The Hinge of Fate (November 29, 2012)

The Hinge of Fate is the fourth volume in Winston Churchill's six-volume history of WWII The Second World War. It is much the fattest of the six volumes, at over 900 pages including the detailed appendices. This volume covers Japan's early victories, and, in the Mediterranean, the long string of defeats the allies suffered in North Africa. As in the preceding volumes, Churchill speaks in the first person and, naturally, from the perspective of the British experience. He again relies heavily on "directives, telegrams, and minutes upon the daily conduct of the war and of British affairs"--documents written by Churchill himself during the conflict, and on replies and responses to the many telegrams and reports he authored during the conflict. These are supplemented by the author's retrospective analysis. He again writes in minute detail and neglects no sphere of activity, even including a chapter on the situation in Madagascar. Madagascar is not a country I'd ever thought of as being involved in WWII, but I was wrong. A considerable amount of the writing involves political developments in England and there is a great deal of material that illuminates the personal characters of President Roosevelt and Stalin through Churchill's dealings with these men. It is particularly interesting to watch the development of Churchill's impatience with what he sees as Roosevelt's exaggerated opinion of the importance of the Chinese and with Roosevelt's somewhat naive approach to dealing with Stalin.

It's only at the very end of this long book that much hopeful news emerges. The allies finally stop the German advance in the deserts of North Africa at Alamein, and the US begins to have some success against the Japanese in the Pacific. Churchill says about the victory at Alamein that it will survive as "a glorious page in British military annals" because of the long odds against success the allied armies faced, but also because "it marked the turning of 'the hinge of fate.'" "It may almost be said," Churchill writes, "Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat." Hence the title.

Books about war often dwell on details of clashes of arms, creating the false impression that wars are won exclusively on the battlefield. Churchill sketches battles only broadly, while focusing as much or more on the decision-making behind strategy, on politics behind the scenes, and on such mundane issues as supply and logistics and how they affected planning and the outcomes of the physical struggles we normally think of as the activity of war. I felt a little overwhelmed by the end of The Hinge of Fate. In places it even felt a little tedious. However, while Churchill's insistence on covering all of his activity during the war can be challenging, it ultimately has the positive effect of bringing home very clearly just how important the details are, particularly getting supply and logistics right, and in Volume V, there will much more of this leading up to the invasion of Normandy, a project of unprecedented scale and one that involved a great deal of delicate diplomacy.

Books I'm Reading: The Grand Alliance by Winston Churchill (October 28, 2012)

I've now finished the third volume of Winston Churchill's six-volume history of WWII The Second World War, this one entitled The Grand Alliance. The scope of this third volume is fairly breathtaking, following the escalation and expansion of the war as Germany and Italy move east through the Mediterranean, threatening Egypt, as Hitler turns on the Soviet Union, and as Japan attacks the United States in Hawaii and British and Dutch possessions in Asia, bringing Great Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union into a grand alliance of nations united by the goal of defeating the Axis powers.

As in the previous volumes, Churchill tells the story in the first person and mainly from the perspective of British activities. It again relies heavily on "directives, telegrams, and minutes upon the daily conduct of the war and of British affairs"--documents mostly written by Churchill himself during the conflict. These are supplemented by the author's retrospective analysis of events. At the end of the volume, I was left with a much better understanding of the relationship that developed between Churchill and President Roosevelt and of Stalin's character as revealed by communications between Churchill and Stalin. Churchill's calmness and confidence are remarkable throughout. While recognizing that winning the war will be painful and time-consuming, from a very early date he understands in broad outline how events are likely to unfold and he is unshakeable in his conviction that the Allies will win. This is not bluster. His view is based on rational analysis. In particular, Churchill understands the immense importance of now having the wealth of the United States behind Britain, which remains mostly in retreat through the period covered by this volume (1941).

Book I'm Reading: Winston Churchill's Their Finest Hour (September 26, 2012)

I've just finished Their Finest Hour, the second volume of Winston Churchill's six-volume history of WWII. Much of what I said about the first volume, The Gathering Storm, applies here. This, the next installment in Churchill's detailed chronicle of the war from the position of an insider, is again delivered in crisp, efficient prose and draws heavily on contemporary documents. In Their Finest Hour, Churchill takes us from his taking over as Prime Minister in May 1940 through January 1941. The main events in the period were the capitulation of France (which left Britain standing virtually alone against Hitler and Mussolini), the Battle of Britain, and the beginning of the Blitz--the mass bombing of London. The war in North Africa was just beginning to heat up as well. Once again, Churchill's epigraph sums up the book nicely: "How the British people held the fort alone till those who hitherto had been half blind were half ready." It's fascinating to read Churchill's many memos to President Roosevelt during this period, repeatedly urging a reluctant president to help. I'm now deep in Volume III, The Grand Alliance.

Books I'm Reading: Winston Churchill's The Gathering Storm (August 15, 2012)

I've long wanted to read Churchill's six-volume history of WWII. I've finally made a start by reading the first volume, The Gathering Storm. The entire set was among the books left behind in my father's library. I probably won't immediately read the second volume, but I will get to it and the rest of the series sooner rather than later now.

In its early chapters, this first volume lays out in great detail the events that led to the Second World War in Europe, with Churchill giving much emphasis to the idea that the war could have been prevented entirely--at several junctures--if only the victorious nations of the First World War 20 years earlier had contained Germany by steadfastly forcing that country's adherence to military restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles while giving Germany economic support--instead of doing the opposite: insisting on reparations and the enforcement of unreasonable economic punishments while ignoring German rearmament in clear violation of treaty provisions.

Churchill opens his book with the following heading: "How the English-speaking peoples through their unwisdom, carelessness, and good nature allowed the wicked to rearm." While it seems to me that the French, too, were culpable, Churchill's summary is typically succinct and accurate. Throughout the book, he reminds us that he vigorously pointed out the dangers of the developing situation and that his warnings and those of his political allies went largely unheeded. While the I-told-you-so remarks are frequent, Churchill makes a point of mentioning nothing that he had not stated publicly or in writing at the time, and history proved Churchill mostly right.

The second half of the book is devoted to what Churchill calls the "twilight war," often referred to as the "phony war" during which there was virtually no fighting on land--the period between Hitler's invasion of Poland (September 3, 1939) and the invasion of France. Most activity was on the high seas. The Scandinavian situation (and especially the Norwegian campaign) figures prominently. Churchill was closely involved in the latter, as he had returned to the position of First Lord of the Admiralty when Britain declared war on Germany, on the day Hitler invaded Poland (Churchill didn't become prime minister and minister of defense, with general responsibility for the war, including land forces, until the German attack on France in May 1940, which precipitated the resignation of Prime Minister Chamberlain). Churchill rightly saw at an early date that taking Narvik, in Norway, the main source of German iron ore for steel production, was critical, but scruples about violating Norwegian neutrality caused a disastrous delay in action. The volume closes with the failure to thwart Hitler in Norway and the change of the British government in 1940.

This first-person account in finely wrought prose by one of the leaders of the nations that fought WWII is valuable for its breadth and its depth of detail and for the inside view it gives of decision-making in London as the clash approached. The writing is crisp and clear throughout. Substantial appendices flesh out many aspects of the narrative in minute detail. While this book is hardly new (having been published first in 1948), it remains a unique personal account of the looming disaster of WWII. Campaigns in which the British were involved get disproportionate attention, and it's worth remembering that Churchill was a participant not a detached observer--that he was a politician not an historian. The series is perhaps better viewed as an extended memoir than as straight history, but it's fascinating reading nevertheless. Recommended.