The Gathering Storm Author:Winston S. Churchill This book is unique. No great statesman of our time has had such a command of the English language. Few have had such a grasp of history or played so large a part in making it. — Mr. Churchill, throughout his career, preserved every scrap of significant material for the books he knew he would eventually write. Every order that he issued, every me... more »morandum or personal telegram, was immediately set up in type, printed, and filed. "I doubt," he says, "whether any similar record exists or has ever existed."
The present book-probably the first of five-covers the period of the false peace and the growing challenge of Germany (when Churchill in opposition was consistently right) until the outbreaki of the war, which the author had long predicted, and finally on to the climactic and terrible moment just before Dunkirk when Hitler seemed on the threshold of victory. Then Churchill at last became Prime Minister. All his life, he felt, had been a preparation for this hour.
The manner is as great as the matter. Churchill's words, as much as his acts, have made him the embodiment of the Allied cause. Every American knows his magnificent speeches, but not everyone realizes that he is a professional writer, a top-flight historian and biographer who has supported himself through most of his life with his pen. Page after page of this book will go down to the future as permanent contributions to English literature.« less