The Second World War (book) - Legacy

Legacy

The Second World War can still be read with great profit by students of the period, provided it is seen mainly as a memoir by a leading participant rather than as an authoritative history by a professional and detached historian. The Second World War, particularly the period between 1940 and 1942 when Britain was fighting with only the support of the Empire and a few Allies, was after all the climax of Churchill's career and his personal account of the inside story of those days is unique and invaluable.

American historian Raymond Callahan, reviewing David Reynolds's book (In Command of History) about Churchill's The Second World War, writes that "The outlines of the story have long been known—Churchill wrote to put his own spin on the history of the war and give himself and his family financial security, and he wrote with a great deal of assistance." Callahan concludes that as far as the war is concerned, any changes to historian's understanding of the book (now that what Churchill wrote has been compared in detail to the released archives) "remains the arresting figure he has always been—dynamic, often wrong, but the indispensable leader" who led Britain to "its last, terribly costly, imperial victory." But Churchill was, writes Callahan, guilty of "carefully reconstructing the story" to suit his postwar political goals.

As historian John Keegan notes in his 1985 introduction to the series, some deficiencies in the Churchill accounts are due to the lack of still secret Ultra intelligence. Keegan also notes the uniqueness of Churchill's account, since none of the other major leaders – Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler – wrote a first-hand account of the war. Churchill's books were put together collaboratively, as he actively solicited others involved in the war for their papers and remembrances.