The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

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  • Create Date：2020-02-26 04:10:15
  • Update Date：2025-09-08
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  • Author：Erik Larson
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Editor Reviews

★ 02/17/2020

Larson (Dead Wake) delivers a propulsive, character-driven account of Winston Churchill’s first year as British prime minister (May 1940–May 1941), when the German air force launched “a full-on assault against the city of London” in preparation for an invasion that never came. Larson’s profile subjects include Churchill’s 17-year-old daughter, Mary; his private secretary, John “Jock” Colville, who kept a meticulous (and likely illegal, due to the national security secrets it revealed) diary; Nazi leader Rudolf Hess; and, to a lesser extent, ordinary Britons. Juxtaposing monumental developments, such as the Dunkirk evacuation, with intimate scenes, Larson notes that on the night Churchill learned French leaders wanted to make peace with Hitler, he raised his dinner guests’ spirits by passing out cigars, reading aloud telegrams of support from other countries, and “chant the refrain from a popular song.” Larson highlights little-known but intriguing figures, including chief science adviser Frederick Lindemann, who made a multifaceted but unsuccessful case for why tea shouldn’t be rationed, and documents the carnage caused by German bombs, including the deaths of 34 people at the Café de Paris shortly before Mary Churchill was set to arrive at the club. While the story of Churchill’s premiership and the Blitz have been told in greater historical depth, they’ve rarely been rendered so vividly. Readers will rejoice. Agent: David Black, the David Black Agency. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Reviews

labmom55 ，

Erik Larson is my favorite author of nonfiction. He writes books that just grab me as well as always teaching me something new. Looking back on Churchill, it’s easy to assume he was always loved and admired. But that’s not the case. He had many detractors on both sides of the pond. Larson does a wonderful job of giving us a flesh and blood Churchill - kimonos and all. His strength lay in being able to give the English hope and a willingness to fight on. After his moving speech about fighting on and never surrendering, he turns to a colleague and says “and...we will fight them with the butt end of broken bottles, because that’s bloody well all we’ll have left”. While Churchill provides the locus of the story, it is much more all encompassing. We learn exactly what England was up against in that first year of war. It’s the details that he gives us that stick with me. On the first massive bombing of London, it’s the “dust from the age of Cromwell, Dickens and Victoria” that rains down on everyone and covers everything. His choice of quotes are always striking. It’s the perfect blend of the monumental facts and the minute detail so that you have a complete picture. I came away with a much better understanding of what the Battle of Britain was all about. I had not understood how much of England, not just London, was subjected to the horrendous bombing. And it put me in awe of the English ability to withstand such horror. My thanks to netgalley and Crown Publishing for an advance copy of this book.

AllieT ，

For World War II buffs, The Splendid and the Vile will definitely be a pleaser, as it is meticulously and thoroughly researched. Focusing on the period between 1940-1941 when the German Luftwaffe launched a series of attacks on the British Isle, including London, Eric Larson offers a sweeping, yet intimate, account of Winston Churchill's experience of that period. As with all Larson's historical forays, the writing style is readily accessible to the non-academic reader, albeit at times the level of detail in this book can be mind-numbing and even tedious. That said, he does an excellent job of reminding American readers of details of WWII that are often lost in the current narrative of the so-called "Greatest Generation." For example, because the book focuses on the British experience prior to American entry in the war, the reader learns much about the momentous efforts by Churchill to get Americans to enter the war, knowing full well in the wake of France's surrender that without American support, Britain could only hold off Adolf Hitler for so long. These efforts were met with concerted opposition on the part of some Americans such as Joseph Kennedy, US ambassador to Great Britain and Charles Lindbergh, the flying ace and national hero who threw his support behind the isolationist group, the America First Committee. What the reader also discover is that due to isolationism, American military was in poor shape. As Time Magazine, at the time put it, “Against Europe’s total war, the US Army looked like a few nice boys with BB guns.” The reader is also treated to vivid descriptions of Churchill’s preference for flowery and flamboyant nightwear and his dancing habits. However, the book is at its best when it focuses on the experiences of ordinary citizens, recounting their perceptions and experiences of aerial bombing as part of the social research project, Mass-Observation. In 1939, Mass-Observation invited members of the public to record and send them a day-to-day account of their lives in the form of a diary. No special instructions were given to these diarists, so they varied greatly in their style, content and length. Thus, they provide an honest and often unseen perspective on war. Although I wish that Larson had spent more time on this aspect, given the countless pages already devoted to Churchill’s life, he has written an entertaining and informative popular history of this time period.

MaryND ，

I’ve read several books by Eric Larson—he’s a writer who doesn’t disappoint, and “The Splendid and the Vile” is no exception. Set roughly over the one year period between the time Winston Churchill became prime minister of Great Britain in May 1940 and the end of the London Blitz in May 1941, Larson’s account takes the reader inside Churchill’s cabinet—and his private life—through letters, memoirs and diary excerpts from Churchill, his wife Clementine, daughter Mary and daughter-in-law Pamela as well as the various ministers and private secretaries—even King George VI—who witnessed this tumultuous period of World War II. Larson follows the events of the year chronologically, detailing Lord Beaverbrook’s efforts to increase Britain’s aircraft production; meetings between Churchill and France’s leadership as the situation in France grew ever more grim; Dunkirk; the Battle of Britain and the London Blitz; and Churchill’s numerous requests to Franklin Roosevelt for American military aid. He also provides the German perspective, combing through letters and diaries from Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, Luftwaffe Chief Hermann Göring and German ace Adolph Galland to illuminate German attempts to subdue Britain. Scattered throughout are excerpts from the Mass-Observation diaries of ordinary Londoners and Larson’s own sharp observations, which for me really elevated this book and set it apart from other accounts I’ve read. Here’s Larson describing the morning after one of the first big raids: “For Londoners, it was a night of first experiences and sensations. The smell of cordite after a detonation. The sound of glass being swept into piles.” And a diary passage typical of the many fascinating accounts: “It’s not the bombs I’m scared of any more, it’s the weariness,” wrote a female civil servant in her Mass-Observation diary—“trying to work and concentrate with your eyes sticking out of your head like hat-pins, after being up all night. I’d die in my sleep, happily, if only I could sleep.” This is not an exhaustive military history or a Churchill biography—there are already plenty of those. But if you want a fly-on-the-wall look at Churchill’s first year as prime minister from all sorts of perspectives, “The Splendid and the Vile” is a fascinating must read. Thank you to NetGalley and Crown/Random House for providing me with an ARC of this title in return for my honest review.