The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz (Unabridged) The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz (Unabridged)

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz (Unabridged‪)‬

    • 4.3 • 778 Ratings
    • $19.99

    • $19.99

Publisher Description

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers a fresh and compelling portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz

NAMED ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2020 BY The Washington Post HuffPost The Seattle Times Lit Hub The Week PopSugar

On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end.

In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless.” It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill’s “Secret Circle,” to whom he turns in the hardest moments.
 
The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.

This audiobook includes a recording of Winston Churchill's 1941 Christmas Eve speech.

GENRE
History
NARRATOR
JL
John Lee
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
17:49
hr min
RELEASED
2020
February 25
PUBLISHER
Random House Audio
SIZE
1.1
GB

Customer Reviews

catssjshd ,

It's a good book but.....

The book is good don't get me wrong, but in some of the chapters it felt super long and boring because it had a lot of necessary information.

Word dork 76 ,

Very good!

Coulda done without the f@!* word, though.

D.Suhrobov ,

Love it

Astounding how much detail author gave to the book, it makes person to feel history in full perspective.

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