Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom
Written by Thomas E. Ricks
Narrated by James Lurie
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
Both George Orwell and Winston Churchill came close to death in the mid-1930's-Orwell shot in the neck in a trench line in the Spanish Civil War, and Churchill struck by a car in New York City. If they'd died then, history would scarcely remember them. At the time, Churchill was a politician on the outs, his loyalty to his class and party suspect. Orwell was a mildly successful novelist, to put it generously. No one would have predicted that by the end of the 20th century they would be considered two of the most important people in British history for having the vision and courage to campaign tirelessly, in words and in deeds, against the totalitarian threat from both the left and the right. In a crucial moment, they responded first by seeking the facts of the matter, seeing through the lies and obfuscations, and then they acted on their beliefs. Together, to an extent not sufficiently appreciated, they kept the West's compass set toward freedom as its due north.
It's not easy to recall now how lonely a position both men once occupied. By the late 1930's, democracy was discredited in many circles, and authoritarian rulers were everywhere in the ascent. There were some who decried the scourge of communism, but saw in Hitler and Mussolini "men we could do business with," if not in fact saviors. And there were others who saw the Nazi and fascist threat as malign, but tended to view communism as the path to salvation. Churchill and Orwell, on the other hand, had the foresight to see clearly that the issue was human freedom-that whatever its coloration, a government that denied its people basic freedoms was a totalitarian menace and had to be resisted.
In the end, Churchill and Orwell proved their age's necessary men. The glorious climax of Churchill and Orwell is the work they both did in the decade of the 1940's to triumph over freedom's enemies. And though Churchill played the larger role in the defeat of Hitler and the Axis, Orwell's reckoning with the menace of authoritarian rule in Animal Farm and 1984 would define the stakes of the Cold War for its 50-year course, and continues to give inspiration to fighters for freedom to this day. Taken together, in Thomas E. Ricks's masterful hands, their lives are a beautiful testament to the power of moral conviction, and to the courage it can take to stay true to it, through thick and thin.
Churchill and Orwell makes a great Father's Day gift!
Thomas E. Ricks
Thomas E. Ricks is The Washington Post's senior Pentagon correspondent. A member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams for national reporting, he has reported on U.S. military activities in Somalia, Haiti, Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Kuwait, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq and A Soldier's Duty.
More audiobooks from Thomas E. Ricks
First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Making the Corps Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Churchill and Orwell
Related audiobooks
Mentor: Benjamin Franklin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Are We Talking About Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And the Gods Laughed Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sinking of the Blücher: The Battle of Drøbak Narrows, April 1940 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ingenious Mr. Pyke: Inventor, Fugitive, Spy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAscent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Humbugs of the World (Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsField Notebooks: How Scientists Record and Write About Observations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDuck and Cover: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIan Bagg: Conversations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGood Thinking: Why Flawed Logic Puts Us All at Risk and How Critical Thinking Can Save the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thomas Steinbeck, son of famed writer John Steinbeck: An interview about his life, his novels, his father. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Million Years in a Day: A Curious History of Everyday Life From the Stone Age to the Phone Age Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tony Horwitz: A Voyage Long and Strange Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Celebrated Jumping Frog & Other Sketches Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNo Apologies: How to Find and Free Your Voice in the Age of Outrage―Lessons for the Silenced Majority Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNPR Sound Treks: Birds: Spellbinding Tales of Flight, Feather, and Song Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seeing, Eye to I: Understanding Visual Perception Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Macat Analysis of Ian Kershaw's The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Churchill Defiant: Fighting On: 1945-1955 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitler's Charisma: Leading Millions into the Abyss Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin from the Interrogations of Hitler's Personal Aides Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing Hitler: The Plots, the Assassins, and the Dictator Who Cheated Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Political Biographies For You
The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Infidel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Watergate Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Rescue the Constitution: George Washington and the Fragile American Experiment Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lincoln Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Benjamin Franklin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Peril Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mornings on Horseback Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A House in the Sky: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5John Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fear: Trump in the White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward's Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Enough Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Romney: A Reckoning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White House Plumbers: The Seven Weeks That Led to Watergate and Doomed Nixon's Presidency Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5V Is For Victory Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Churchill and Orwell
94 ratings10 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book waas highly touted, I enjoy the author, but it didn't do as much for me as I hoped. Both Churchill and Orwell were almost in a minority of two warning about fascism, communism, and the Naziis in the 1930's, although Orwell barely just after his experiencxe in the Spanish Civil War in the latter part of that decade, but Churchill had been alone "in the wilderness, the object of mucg derision and exclusion, for his, mainly, anti-Maziism. We all know about Churchill's call to duty in 1940 and his redemption and Orwel''s "Animal Farm" and "1984".Orwell barely survived WWII and Churchill lived long after asa succesful author but an unsuccesful politician.The book is not long and very readable. I learnt little about Churchill from it; more about Orwell but really not much. The better part of the book is in its wrap-up and conclkusions
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5If one has read neither Churchill nor Orwell, this book is an excellent introduction and summary of their writings. As a comparison of the two men, Ricks really doesn't have much to say other than that Churchill had a larger influence as a political leader and orator while Orwell has left a more lasting written legacy. A good read either way, but nothing new for those who have read both Churchill and Orwell.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."---George OrwellThis was an almost perfect read for me. It is concise and insightful and well written. It loses half a star because Ricks at times overstated his case. I loved the format which alternated chapters between these two very different men who have both left behind a legacy that is especially relevant in today's political climate. Ricks starts with a brief history of each man and then follows them into and through WWII. What is especially interesting is that Orwell kept a diary throughout his life, and so he commented on Churchill often. In fact:"The last article George Orwell would ever complete and publish was a review of the second volume of Churchill's war memoirs, Their Finest Hour. He was appreciative of the politician, despite the vast difference in their political views:"The political reminiscences which he has published from time to time have always been a great deal above average, in frankness as well as in literary quality. Churchill is among other things a journalist, with a real if not very discriminating feeling for literature, and he also has a restless, enquiring mind, interested in both concrete facts and in the analysis of motives, sometimes including his own motives. In general, Churchill's writings are more like those of a human being than of a public figure."My favorite parts of the book were those that focused on Orwell, but then I have a thing for Orwell, and I have read a lot of his writing. Ricks does an excellent job of showing how Orwell'w writing grew with his life's experiences, and how Spain was a turning point for him: "What he saw in the Spanish Civil War in 1937 would inform all his subsequent work. There is a direct line from the streets of Barcelona in 1937 to the torture chambers of 1984....Orwell, arriving home, had become the writer we know today from Animal Farm and 1984. Burma had made him an anti-imperialist, but it was his time in Spain that developed his political vision and with it the determination to criticize right and left with equal vigor. Before Spain, he had been a fairly conventional leftist, arguing that fascism and capitalism were essentially the same. Until this point, Orwell still clung to some of the views of the 1930s left. He would leave Spain resolved to oppose the abuse of power at both ends of the political spectrum."The book is a mere 339 pages (with the last 60 of these being the notes and acknowledgements), but it packs a punch. Well worth your time if you are at all interested in the subject. Ricks has put together a unique and very interesting narrative that will pull you right into its pages.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This an excellent joint biography of two of the most influential 20th-century figures. While certainly not exhaustive, this book provides an overview of the lives of both Winston Churchill and George Orwell, delving into each's careers as the themes of war, politics, and personal liberties are explored. This is a very timely book for those interested connecting current politics to history and I enjoyed the conclusion's connections of the book's themes to contemporary issues.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great read, great history of WW2 and details extending from mid thirties until the sixties of the twentieth century. Comparison of two great contemporary history and political writers. Comparisons of craft development and political successes related to many colonial wars and WW2 from 1939 to VE day and extending until Churchill's death in 1965. Life stories of Burma, India and Spanish Civil war and the written history generated by Churchill at the conclusion of WW2. Comparisons made to Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984. 270pp of top notch word-craft from "Ricks"
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An intriguing pairing for a dual biography that reads well and delivers much understanding and pleasure. Mr Ricks, thank you.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A very interesting exercise in comparing and contrasting two influential (and seeming ideologically opposing) figures of history.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An outstanding biography of these two men who one would have considered as very different, but the author shows how on matters of importance how similar they were: In particular The ability to understand the issues of the day and how to fight for the individual and liberty.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is an interesting book in that it combines the biographies of two famous men in one story. The author compares and shows similarities between Churchill and Orwell. I liked the book in that it provided information on both individuals that I did not know. I had less knowledge about Orwell albeit I have read some of his most famous works. It was sad to recall that Churchill did poorly after the war. It is also unfortunate that Orwell had such poor health. I recommend this book.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Very good biography of Churchill & Orwell, delving into their roles and perspectives on the war and post-war world. Ricks writing style is very engaging and makes what could be somewhat dry subjects very readable. Although Ricks makes a point to link the 2 subjects, and there are areas of overlap and commonalities (Orwell admired and often agreed with Churchill although they were not political allies and Churchill was a fan of 1984), the 2 never actually met and the combining of the 2 in one book may have been a bit of a stretch. That being said, it works and is not only informative but entertaining. Highly recommended.