The Churchill Documents

In Commentary, Andrew Roberts reviews the new volume by Martin Gilbert and Larry P. Arnn.

The book is a mere 2,752 pages long.

An excerpt from the review:

As the previous volume ended, the Allies were about to invade mainland Italy. This one covers the slow painful slog up the Apennines, the fall of Mussolini, the plans for Operation Overlord, the problems of dealing with a now-victorious Stalin, the issues raised by Japan and the Pacific War. It also documents an increasingly testy relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt, as they no longer saw eye to eye over the relative merits of the present Italian campaign versus the impending one in France. Hundreds of further letters cover the problems that crossed Churchill’s desk, such as postwar planning, parliamentary business and ministerial appointments, what to do about the Italian navy after it surrendered, and so on. When Churchill is criticized by revisionist historians over what to do about, say, the terrible famine in Bengal, they often forget the multitude of other issues with which he had simultaneously to deal.