Book Review: Churchill's Trial: Winston Churchill and the Salvation of Free Government, Larry P. Arnn

Arnn sets out to show how Churchill saved free government. He attempts to do so using three macro-themes: War, Empire, and Peace. In each section, Arnn uses Churchill's writings and speeches to decipher his thoughts on these issues and how he influenced England and the world.

I really can't decide how I think about this biography, Churchill's Trial. It would have been better for me to have read a more traditional biography first, before tackling this political/sociological biography. I needed more background on Churchill the man before trying to understand Churchill the politician. Essentially, all I knew about Churchill was his strong leadership of England during the darkest days of World War II.

I don't think he succeeded in demonstrating that Churchill saved free government — no one person could accomplish that. He did succeed in showing how Churchill stood against intrusive, big government … mostly. And, rather than stretch history and force Churchill into a single line of politicial thought throughout his life, Arnn was willing to show how Churchill adapted to the needs of his time. While Churchill might not have been a saviour, he was certainly influential and many of his themes are echoed by conservative politicians of the early 21st century.

It seems to me that Churchill was a pragmatist — he was against socialism as an overarching political and social philosophy, but he was willing to adopt and adapt some elements of socialism because they were the right things to do. Churchill's biggest fear about socialism was that a socialist government would ultimately and inevitably insinuate itself into every nook and cranny of the life of an individual citizen and Churchill believed that the root of a strong nation was its citizens, not its government.

The best chapter was the last: Conclusion: Churchill's Trial and Ours. Arnn summarized well the things he tried to point out through the book. For me, at least, many of those things were less than clear until this point. In the second section of this chapter, Churchill's Lessons, the phrase "Churchill taught" was way overused — to the point that it was obnoxious to me. Churchill was not a teacher or master or sage in the traditional sense of those words. His teaching was through his volumnious writing.

I also appreciated the Appendices which were significant articles or essays written by Churchill. The best of those was the first, Fifty Years Hence, published in December 1931.

All in all, this is a book worth reading. Churchill was remarkably insightful about the dangers (as he saw them) of big, socialistic governments. Churchill lived and was in positions of political influence during a critical period in the history of democracies. I felt like Arnn's treatment of the themes were difficult to follow and absorb. Be prepared to read, reread, and to spend time mulling over what Arnn (and Churchill) are trying to communicate.

(DISCLAIMER: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, via their bloggers' review programme,  BookLook Bloggers, in exchange for an honest review. I receive no additional compensation except for continued participation in the programme.)

Book Review: Seven Women — Women Who Changed the World

I read Seven Men by Metaxas about 2 1/2 years ago (April 2013) and thought at the time that he should write a similar book about women. That book, Seven Women, is coming out on 8 September 2015.

Like its prequel, Seven Women is a series of short biographies of people who have made an important, sometimes culture-shifting contribution to their own time and culture and to the subsequent history of the world. The biographies in Seven Women are about women whose lives and accomplishments can inspire others to attempt great things -- Joan of Arc, Susanna Wesley, Hannah More, Saint Maria of Paris, Corrie ten Boom, Rosa Parks, and Mother Teresa. These women were all women of deep faith in God and who depended on God for inspiration, strength, and guidance as they set out to do what He had called them to do.

Metaxas chose women whose greatness derive[d] precisely from their being women, not in spite of it… and not because they or their accomplishments are measured against who men are and what men have done. Metaxas does not attempt to promote either an egalitarian or a complementarian viewpoint on the role of men and women. Some of these women were wives and mothers -- some were unsuccessful at or unfulfilled in those roles (not always their fault, either) -- but Metaxas focuses more on what they did outside of those roles.

Some of the biographies are stronger than others. For me, the stories of Hannah More, Saint Maria of Paris, and Rosa Parks were the most interesting. Prior to reading Seven women, I knew nothing about those three -- except for knowing that Rosa Parks' determination not to move from her seat on the Birmingham bus so that white folk could sit on that row was the spark that lit the fire of the Civil Rights Movement in the US. The biographies in this book should be inspiring to men and women, to girls and boys.

DISCLAIMER: I received a free review copy of this book from the publisher as a part of their BookLook Bloggers programme. I received no other compensation except for continued participation in the book review programme and have been free to write the reveiw that I think the book deserves.

Enjoyable and Informative, but with a flawed premise — "The Printer and the Preacher" Book Review

My review is fairly critical of Peterson's book, The Printer and the Preacher. However, let me state at the beginning, that I enjoyed the book a lot, even with all the things that I find wrong with it. If I ignore the fact that I think Peterson failed to demonstrate his premise that a friendship between Franklin and Whitefield "invented America", he does a good job of showing how these two men exerted a powerful influence on the unique character of the emerging American nation. Many of these character traits have continued into the 21st century. They may well have been the most influential pre-Revolutionary War figures in this young, not-yet country. So, read the book for this perspective.

The best part of the book is the final chapter, "Special Effects". With a little background information on both Franklin and Whitefield, this chapter could have been published as an article. In this chapter, Peterson talks about how each influenced and affected the other. He also summarizes the many ways that each man impacted the forming character of the new nation. As Peterson says in this chapter, "We are George and Ben."

The timelines that Peterson included at the end of the book are also helpful. He includes 3 timelines: Before They Met, George Whitefield's Amazing American Tour (1739-41), and Encounters (listing the known and possible meetings and correspondence of George and Ben).

Peterson's premise, that the friendship between Franklin and Whitefield invented America, is quite bold … and, frankly, I think he failed to prove it. First, I wonder how much of a friendship there really was. It seems, from Peterson's book, that the two men were certainly acquaintances and business partners. This was, as Peterson points out in the final chapter, a long-lasting relationship. However, I don't think the book supports the kind of deep friendship that the subtitle postulates. For example, at one point, Peterson mentions that both Whitefield and Franklin were in England at the same time, but over a period of 6 years, they never once saw each other or talked to each other or wrote to each other or even acknowledged in their respective memoirs that the other was close. In other places, Peterson uses speculation to bolster his claim of an "inventing friendship" and even about other events or relationships. I'm not a fan of biographies that make excessive use of speculation and this is one (speculative biographies).

Second, both men embodied the unique characteristics of this country-in-the-making — independence, egalitarianism, a fervor for making the budding nation the best it could be, pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps. Each, on his own, was one of the most powerful of positive influences among the colonies as the colonies sometimes inched and sometimes hurtled toward independence. However, to say that their friendship invented America is, at best, speculation. Franklin and Whitefield were certainly good for each other — they challenged, supported, and, in their own ways, promoted each other. They were good for the emerging country as they sought to make America a good nation. It's just that their friendship didn't do that.

There are some odd mistakes in the book that an editor should have caught. These are two examples: 1962 saw the start of the Salem witch trials (that should be 1692); [Franklin] had established a newspaper as…a "fifth estate"… (the mainstream press is generally considered to be the' fourth estate').

Finally, Peterson's writing style sometimes becomes extremely informal in ways that are normal for oral communication but feel out of place for a biography. For example, This was not a marketing gimmick. Well, it was, but he was backing up the image… and If you view advertising as proud and/or deceptive, you’ll have a problem with this…

If you, like me, enjoy reading about the formation of the American republic, then this is a good gook to read.

(DISCLAIMER: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher as a review copy as a part of their BookLook Bloggers programme. As a participant in this programme, I am free to write the review I think the book deserves and receive no compensation other than continued participation in the programme — I don't even get a kickback if you click on the book title, go to Amazon, and buy the book.)

Book Review: "7 Men: And the Secret of Their Greatness" by Eric Metaxas

In 7 Men: And the Secret of Their Greatness, Eric Metaxas endeavors to return readers to a clear and correct understanding of "manhood" by answering two questions: 'What is a man?' and 'What makes a man great?' Metaxas seeks to counter what he sees (and I agree) as misunderstandings of manliness as either brutish bullying to get one's own way or moral weakness in order to get along with everybody.

These questions are never addressed directly in the book after the introduction, but Metaxas seeks to provide an answer to them by giving the reader a glimpse into the lives of seven men that he believes deserved to be identified as great: George Washington, William Wilberforce, Eric Liddell, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Jackie Robinson, Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II), and Charles Colson. In doing so, he tries to set these men up as examples to be followed, as role models worth imitating.

I think he succeeds to a great extent. However, if one were to read the short biographies without reading the introduction, one might come away thinking that each of the subjects was a good man who largely succeeded in his own life, but might not catch the Metaxas' intent to identify true manhood.

Metaxas demonstrates that greatness is neither age-dependent nor country-dependent. Each died in a different decade of life — 60s, 70s, 40s, 30s, 50s, 80s, and 70s — and most reached their pinnacle of greatness near the end of their lives. One criticism, though, could be leveled against Metaxas because he limited his choice of subjects to those who came from the broader western cultures — the USA, Germany, England, Scotland, and Poland. He could have broadened the scope of his subjects by writing, for instance, on Nelson Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi. (Side note: Mandela would have been an "odd man out" as all of the subjects of Metaxas' biographies have died — or, as a Kenyan friend has said, "They are past tense.")

At least one reviewer has already taken Metaxas to task for his heavy reliance on secondary sources. But, 7 Men is not intended to be a scholarly treatment of the lives of these men. Rather, they are used to illustrate Metaxas' thesis (in my reading of the book) that greatness, that true manliness is demonstrated when one stands firm on one's convictions even when such a stance leads to rejection, ridicule, suffering, and even death. In this case, reliance on secondary sources is not a detriment.
 
7 Men gives a good introduction to the lives of these 7 men who are admirable. But it goes beyond that to show the foundation of their greatness. This is a good read; highly recommended.

I read the Kindle version. Both the Kindle and the hardcover editions are scheduled for release on 30 April 2013. I received a pre-publication copy of 7 Men from the publisher, through their BookSneeze blogger review program. I was not required to write a positive review. Disclosure