The Grand Alliance: The Second World War, Volume 3 (Winston Churchill World War II Collection) Kindle Edition

This is book number four of 5 books. Like the previous three is was totally fascinating to read. This is the turning point in the War and it is a welcome relief. The big event was the entry of the US into the war. That changed everything. You have to marvel how England managed to hand on like it did. They were lucky in a way that Hitler went after Russia instead of dealing with England. They were damned lucky.It is fascinating to read Churchill's description of some of the key characters in the war: Roosevelt, Stalin, Marshall, Eisenhower, etc. And his writings on when he was Africa and Russia and the meetings he had there and the sights he saw were mesmerizing. Once again, to get through this all I read his writings but skip over all his printed correspondence, notes and speeches he has in the book. I would be dead before I read all of that as well.This book ends around June of 1943. There is a lot more to come. This is like living history told by a player who was not only there but he was in the thick of it. Thank God he was.

Word searching would be especially useful for this series, as transition between topics and years can be difficult to follow. But otherwise ebook easier to carry around than a print volume. Among many other things in this volume Churchill addresses the charge that he was not in a rush to open second European front. He is not especially convincing on this, and a pretty comprehensive counterpoint (from US perspective) can be found in the (slightly) more recent, and first hand, 'Wedermeyer Reports!'.

Churchill was an amazing writer. Along with his own narrative he gives you copies of letters written to him and to his generals as well as foreign secretaries, Stalin and Roosevelt. You can really understand all of the complications of World War II. What is really great that is you get a chance to see the complicated things that were happening at the same time.

The Grand Alliance is the third of six World War 2 chronicles written by Sir Winston Churchill, Great Britain's Prime Minister during this phase of the War. For the sake of temporal orientation, I quote the Preface to Mr. Churchill's subsequent volume, The Hinge of Fate:"In The Gathering Storm, Their Finest Hour, and The Grand Alliance I have described as I saw them the events leading to the Second World War, the conquest of Europe by Nazi Germany, the unflinching resistance of Britain alone until the German attack on Russia and the Japanese assault brought the Soviet Union and the United States to our side."The Grand Alliance details several of the War's more famous battles, including the "Dunkirk Miracle," but most significantly the events leading to the war with Japan, which were vastly more complex than the single event of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Brits did not cheer the attack of course, but nor were they ungrateful that the United States was catapulted out of the bleachers and into the cast of major players.Mr. Churchill's narrative relies heavily on his correspondence with President Roosevelt and his staff, as well as British military leaders, particularly General Wavell. Mr. Churchill is not awfully modest about his foresight, contributions to military as much as to political strategies, and his determined campaign to lever the United States into alliance with Great Britain; and nor should he be.Mr. Churchill's books are packed with details, and the reader may choose to read them with scrutinizing intensity and focus on detail, or more generally as an outline of events. His lucid journalistic style makes the depth of his material quite approachable.

Winston Churchill's history of WWII is an extremely interesting look into the inner workings of the relationships between the Allies and all of the considerations that had to be juggled in the war against the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan. There are many fascinating tidbits found here.If there was a separate rating for editing or proof-reading, I would be hard pressed to give the Kindle version even two stars. It appears that the text you read is the result of scanning a printed book with an optical character recognition (OCR) program. There is at least one typo on each page and many pages have more than one typo. You get used to this and, in most cases, the word that should be there is obvious - such as "arc" for "are". The OCR missed the horizontal mark in the "e". Some of the typos are even humorous. So, Amazon, get your proof readers back to the job and straighten this out.

Reading Churchill is a genuine treat. He wrote extensively and well and was given the right by the Crown to access the official archives were kept.This is a part of the six volume set Churchill assembled to describe the second world war. While the powers in Europe were disarming their military as a result of the treaty ending the first world war, Germany openly ignored constraints upon its power by that treaty and constructed the most powerful military in Europe.. Hitler calculated correctly that the allies would back down when challenged rather than go to war again so soon.Churchill soon saw that Hitler's military strength required that the allies re-arm and form an alliance to stop Hitler. After assuming the post of Prime Minister he gathered a small force and used it to hold off the Nazis until an alliance could be forged and armed to some degree of parity with the Germans.

I'm a Churchill fan, and particularly enjoy reading WWII history. These books are from his personal writings, and are detailed. It's a good idea to follow along with a map, or thesaurus though, that helps keep things straight in my mind. Such a great perspective to have of such a world changing event-especially in light of the fact that the same players (Germany actions in WWI, Russia's continual overreach today, and America and our allies disarming-like after WWII) keep repeating history. It's also so valuable to have personal histories such as this from the primary 'players', as we continue to see denials (most recently from the Japanese officials and society) of their actions during events such as WWII.

This is the third volume of a six volume account of WW2 from Winston Churchill. I am completely absorbed with these first hand accounts from the countries leader during this world conflict. Although written several years after the war, Churchills writing style is such that it could have been written within the last few years. The story of this conflict is narrated using many of Churchill's letters and correspondence to millitary, political and world leaders. Although there are sometimes throughout the book several pages of just these records of correspondence which tend to stray from the authors personal account of the time, I believe this keeps this book objective and factual. These volumes help me understand the fears of the country and very real threat posed against Britain during the height of Nazi power. I am amazed at Sir Winstons grasp of all the various aspects of running the Empire during the war and the whole range of different aspects he personally kept involved in and supervised. Having read many books on this subject over the period of thirty years I would say that this is the definitive account of WW2 from the British side of the conflict. I am really looking forward to the next volume and would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested this period of world history.

I'm working my way through all six volumes of Churchill's Second World War. The reprinting of his original memos and letters shows how much detail he could absorb and how involved he was personally in every aspect of the War. Of course it is biased, but he is entitled to explain the problems from his own point of view, and that is what makes these volumes so fascinating. My knowledge of some theatres of war such as the fighting against the Italians in North and East Africa was very sketchy and WSC explains all vividly.

An interesting account of the Second World War but rather spoiled by a number of typographical errors which I am certain were not included in the original (and which were not noticeable in the first two volumes). Most memorable is the one where "hard facts" were required: this appears in this version as "hard farts." Hmmm............

"You should summon economists like Keynes to give their views to you personally". (1941). Mr Cordell Hull. "What are the arrangements in British Columbia for dealing with the Japanese colony there should Japan attack?" "I am at this time actively considering sending Sir Arthur Salter there to expedite & animate the whole business of merchant shipbuilding". (1941).

There's really not much one can say about this book as the books speak for themselves, written by the man who made most decisions during World War II this book is filled with interesting facts and figures and is a must read for anybody who has an interest in that period or in English history. Well written and very informative. Makes for a great read.