Churchill history english speaking

One of the greatest talents that Winston Churchill was blessed with was his extraordinary command of the English language. He would go on to write a prodigious 65 books in his lifetime. He was rewarded for this in 1953 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Yet in Britain his abilities as a writer were already widely recognized by the end of the 19th century. Yet oddly enough he had not excelled academically at school and it was only on his third attempt that he passed the entrance examination to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. Before entering politics he went on to combine his military career with journalism and shortly after the outbreak of the South African War in 1899, he was contracted as a war correspondent for the Morning Post. He made his way to the Natal front where he was destined to become one of the highest-paid newspaper reporters in the world. Much has been made of Churchill’s heroism. The exceptional courage he displayed when defending the derailed armoured train at Chieveley in Natal made his reputation. Yet strictly speaking as a journalist he was a non-combatant, but on his capture, the Boers treated him as a combatant because of his actions at the armoured train. This was not an isolated incident of bravery for on other occasions, in Cuba, India and in Africa, his sometimes almost reckless courage had drawn widespread comment. On three different occasions during the Malakand campaign in India, he rode his pony along the skirmish line while everyone else was ducking for cover. He admitted that his actions were foolish, but playing for high stakes was a calculated risk. ‘Given an audience there is no act too daring or too noble’, he wrote to his mother, and concluded his letter by saying: ‘... without the gallery things are different.’ Scaling the wall surrounding the prison yard in Pretoria and making his way through enemy territory to Portuguese East Africa was not considered a particularly great feat by the British military. Yet his escape he was largely unknown to the British people until then was hailed by many as one of the greatest military escapes ever. His instant fame, to a large degree, came about because the war was going badly for the British Army at the time. A depressed British people needed a hero to bolster their sagging enthusiasm for the war, so Winston Churchill was their man. He had the need to stay in the limelight to fuel his political ambitions and the best way to achieve that was by returning to the front as a journalist and part-time soldier after his escape where he continued to captivate the readers of the Morning Post with his dispatches, writing convincingly about his own and other’s front-line experiences. His stories of how he miraculously escaped the bullets that whistled around him in Natal and the Orange Free State and how he rode a bicycle through enemy-held Johannesburg, ending with his triumphant returned to Pretoria where he helped to liberate his former fellow POW's from captivity, earned his newspaper a fortune. The fact that the adventures he described sometimes did not happen exactly the way he related them didn't seem to bother anyone. William Manchester wrote: ‘Virtually every event he (Churchill) described in South Africa, as in Cuba, on the North-West Frontier, and at Omdurman, was witnessed by others with whom recollections were consistent. The difference, of course, lay in the interpretation.’ I set out to discover the real Churchill in those early years of his life. During this process I discovered many facets to this complex and controversial man. At times I felt like a certain painter described by Cervantes. This sage artist was asked, as he was starting on a new canvas, what his picture was to be. ‘That’, he replied, ‘is as it may turn out.’ So this, my account of how the young and extraordinary Winston Churchill became a hero during the South African War, is how it turned out. Paperback, 268 pages. Published August 2008  

One of the greatest talents that Winston Churchill was blessed with was his extraordinary command of the English language. He would go on to write a prodigious 65 books in his lifetime. He was rewarded for this in 1953 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Yet in Britain his abilities as a writer were already widely recognized by the end of the 19th century. Yet oddly enough he had not excelled academically at school and it was only on his third attempt that he passed the entrance examination to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. Before entering politics he went on to combine his military career with journalism and shortly after the outbreak of the South African War in 1899, he was contracted as a war correspondent for the Morning Post. He made his way to the Natal front where he was destined to become one of the highest-paid newspaper reporters in the world. Much has been made of Churchills heroism. The exceptional courage he displayed when defending the derailed armoured train at Chieveley in Natal made his reputation. Yet strictly speaking as a journalist he was a non-combatant, but on his capture, the Boers treated him as a combatant because of his actions at the armoured train. This was not an isolated incident of bravery for on other occasions, in Cuba, India and in Africa, his sometimes almost reckless courage had drawn widespread comment. On three different occasions during the Malakand campaign in India, he rode his pony along the skirmish line while everyone else was ducking for cover. He admitted that his actions were foolish, but playing for high stakes was a calculated risk. Given an audience there is no act too daring or too noble, he wrote to his mother, and concluded his letter by saying:... without the gallery things are different. Scaling the wall surrounding the prison yard in Pretoria and making his way through enemy territory to Portuguese East Africa was not considered a particularly great feat by the British military. Yet his escape he was largely unknown to the British people until then was hailed by many as one of the greatest military escapes ever. His instant fame, to a large degree, came about because the war was going badly for the British Army at the time. A depressed British people needed a hero to bolster their sagging enthusiasm for the war, so Winston Churchill was their man. He had the need to stay in the limelight to fuel his political ambitions and the best way to achieve that was by returning to the front as a journalist and part-time soldier after his escape where he continued to captivate the readers of the Morning Post with his dispatches, writing convincingly about his own and others front-line experiences. His stories of how he miraculously escaped the bullets that whistled around him in Natal and the Orange Free State and how he rode a bicycle through enemy-held Johannesburg, ending with his triumphant returned to Pretoria where he helped to liberate his former fellow POW's from captivity, earned his newspaper a fortune. The fact that the adventures he described sometimes did not happen exactly the way he related them didn't seem to bother anyone. William Manchester wrote: Virtually every event he (Churchill) described in South Africa, as in Cuba, on the North-West Frontier, and at Omdurman, was witnessed by others with whom recollections were consistent. The difference, of course, lay in the interpretation. I set out to discover the real Churchill in those early years of his life. During this process I discovered many facets to this complex and controversial man. At times I felt like a certain painter described by Cervantes. This sage artist was asked, as he was starting on a new canvas, what his picture was to be. That, he replied, is as it may turn out. So this, my account of how the young and extraordinary Winston Churchill became a hero during the South African War, is how it turned out. Paperback, 268 pages. Published August 2008  

  BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR - VOTES FOR WOMEN - THE GREAT DEPRESSION - WIRELESS AGE - SECOND WORLD WAR - WINSTON CHURCHILL ! ENGINEERING - TRANSPORTATION - THOMAS BECKET - UNIFORMS - BATTLE OF AGINCOURT !!! A FANTASTIC SET !!! MINT NEVER HINGED !!! SAILING  SHIPS - BOATS - BRIDGES - PLANES - AVIATION !   (Afrikaans, Nederlands, Deutsch, English).  

2012. Soft cover, 446 pages. Very good condition. Under 1kg.   Dutch historian Martin Bossenbroek won the National Dutch History Prize 2013 for this new chronicle of the war that shaped South Africa and the book was also shortlisted for the 2013 AKO Literature Prize, both preeminent Dutch literary prizes. This English paperback edition follows the Afrikaans paperback, published in October 2014, and will cement the critical acclaim already received by Mr Bossenbroek and offer the South African reader the chance to savour his storytelling powers. The (Anglo) Boer war (1899-1902) has been labelled many things. The originator of apartheid. An appetiser for the First and Second World Wars. The first media war (with the first instance of embedded journalists). It helped create the nation-state South Africa, and remains the cause of fiery debate more than a hundred years after its end. In the Boer war, Martin Bossenbroek gives the reader the full story with an in-depth insight and detail previously unmatched. Bossenbroek follows three colourful main characters: the Dutch lawyer, South African Republic state attorney, state secretary and eventual European envoy Willem Leyds; the soon-to-be-immortalised British war-reporter Winston Churchill; and the Boer commander and one-day South African politician Deneys Reitz. Mr Bossenbroek's riveting new account of the war is a must-read for all South African history buffs, for all who loved Thomas Pakenham's classic bestseller. 

2012 paperback with 446 pages brand new. Anglo-Boer War, Anglo-Boereoorlog. R50 postage in SA or R57 courier to most larger cities in SA. Dutch historian Martin Bossenbroek won the National Dutch History Prize 2013 for this new chronicle of the war that shaped South Africa and the book was also shortlisted for the 2013 AKO Literature Prize, both preeminent Dutch literary prizes. This English paperback edition follows the Afrikaans paperback, published in October 2014, and will cement the critical acclaim already received by Mr Bossenbroek and offer the South African reader the chance to savour his storytelling powers. The (Anglo) Boer war (1899-1902) has been labelled many things. The originator of apartheid. An appetiser for the First and Second World Wars. The first media war (with the first instance of embedded journalists). It helped create the nation-state South Africa, and remains the cause of fiery debate more than a hundred years after its end. In the Boer war, Martin Bossenbroek gives the reader the full story with an in-depth insight and detail previously unmatched. Bossenbroek follows three colourful main characters: the Dutch lawyer, South African Republic state attorney, state secretary and eventual European envoy Willem Leyds; the soon-to-be-immortalised British war-reporter Winston Churchill; and the Boer commander and one-day South African politician Deneys Reitz.

 AMERICAN CAESAR Douglas MacArthur 1880 - 1964 WILLIAM MANCHESTER ; Softcover  Arrow Books 1979  American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964 "Author: William Manchester ISBN: 0-316-54498-1 Contributor: C. Peter Chen Review Date: 7 Aug 2005 American Caesar was one of those books that once you pick it up, you will find yourself flipping through pages deep into the night. Without keeping any suspense, I will flat out say that it was easily among one of the best books I have read. The author William Manchester had done an exhaustive research on Douglas MacArthur for this book, detailing every event from his birth at an army fort through his funeral; the bibliography section of the book alone was twenty pages long. The facts dug as deep as the fact that Sarah Barney Belcher of Taunton, Massachusetts was a common ancestor of Douglas MacArthur, Winston Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt. However, Manchester did not capture readers by merely loading his book with facts. Instead, he captivated readers with his beautiful narratives. Under his penmanship, the horrors of WW1 trench warfare came alive with two simple description sentences at the beginning of chapter two:   "In 1917 France's most striking geographic feature was a double chain of snakelike trenches which began on the English Channel and ended 466 miles away on the Swiss border. Facing one another across the no-man's-land between these earthworks, the great armies squatted on the western front amid the stench of urine, feces, and decaying flesh, living troglodytic lives in candlelit dugouts and sandbagged ditches hewn from Fricourt chalk or La Bassée clay, or scoopoed from the porridge of swampy Flanders."       What Manchester was most notably successful with this book was the smooth interaction between minute details with the big picture, leaving the reader in complete understanding of how seemingly small events weaved into the fabric of MacArthur's life. MacArthur was one of the most controversial public figures of the 20th century, and Manchester succeeded in explaining how each step he had taken in his life developed his unique personality, and in turn how his personality shaped the modern history of Asia and the United States. However, by my observation by the end of the book Manchester had become so much a worshipful fan of MacArthur that as the book went on, critiques of MacArthur appeared less and less. When critiques were included, they often only appeared in form of a small-fonted footnote. Nevertheless, Manchester's writing alone was worth the time I invested in reading this 700-page volume. Reading about his tenure in WW1 and WW2, I found myself cheering for him in his ventures. When as a general he walked the frontlines in the path of danger, my heartbeats skipped a beat whenever a sniper's scope came near him. By the time he was fired because of the initial American losses at the Korean War, I became enraged over the SCAP becoming the scapegoat for Washington's lack of intelligence on China. When MacArthur tearfully told the people of Philippines that in his old age he could no longer promise again "I shall return", I too became teary-eyed alongside of the Filipino people who listened to their savior with watery eyes. Finally, when I finished reading the last word of the last chapter, I closed American Caesar and wept as if I had lost a lifelong friend. Manchester gets a perfect 10 out of 10 from me for being able to write a book that not only accurately depicts the life of Douglas MacArthur but also being able to reach out and touch me emotionally through the book. Pick it up, and you will see why it is no surprise that American Caesar was a #1 Best Seller. "   

2012 paperback with 446 pages brand new. Anglo-Boer War, Anglo-Boereoorlog. R60 postage in SA or R65 courier to most larger cities in SA. Dutch historian Martin Bossenbroek won the National Dutch History Prize 2013 for this new chronicle of the war that shaped South Africa and the book was also shortlisted for the 2013 AKO Literature Prize, both preeminent Dutch literary prizes. This English paperback edition follows the Afrikaans paperback, published in October 2014, and will cement the critical acclaim already received by Mr Bossenbroek and offer the South African reader the chance to savour his storytelling powers. The (Anglo) Boer war (1899-1902) has been labelled many things. The originator of apartheid. An appetiser for the First and Second World Wars. The first media war (with the first instance of embedded journalists). It helped create the nation-state South Africa, and remains the cause of fiery debate more than a hundred years after its end. In the Boer war, Martin Bossenbroek gives the reader the full story with an in-depth insight and detail previously unmatched. Bossenbroek follows three colourful main characters: the Dutch lawyer, South African Republic state attorney, state secretary and eventual European envoy Willem Leyds; the soon-to-be-immortalised British war-reporter Winston Churchill; and the Boer commander and one-day South African politician Deneys Reitz.