BOOK REVIEWS

State Missionary Rick Lance is executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.

Other Recent Blog Entries:

The Caleb Spirit in 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
In my mind, Caleb is the Barnabas of the Old Testament. When others seemed to lose hope, he offered encouragement to them.

A Year to Remember
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
This can be the most wonderful time of the year if we allow the Christ of Christmas to guide us through the experience. Rather than being caught up in the routined frenzy of long lines at stores shopping for gifts and the endless social gatherings during the season, we can focus on what is called the Advent.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Thursday, December 8, 2011
This can be the most wonderful time of the year if we allow the Christ of Christmas to guide us through the experience. Rather than being caught up in the routined frenzy of long lines at stores shopping for gifts and the endless social gatherings during the season, we can focus on what is called the Advent.

Finishing Strong
Monday, November 21, 2011
I do not pretend to be a football coach, but I do believe this "sports experience" translates into our everyday lives, most notably in our Christian lives. There are times when we have seemingly given our all and we feel spent, emotionally, physically and even spiritually.

Be Encouraged!
Thursday, October 28, 2011
In periods of history like the one we now face, Christians have often done some of their most effective service for Christ. But in order to be an effective servant, we must find our source of encouragement in the face of these discouraging situations.

SBC Today: An Interview
Thursday, October 16, 2011
Managing ourselves means more than controlling the calendar, staying morally and ethically pure, reading the latest books, keeping family time balanced, and running things smoothly in one's ministry. I am convinced this means staying in touch with Lord and with yourself in such a way that you make the right decisions and lead in the right direction.

Book Review:
London: A History

London: A History, by A. N. Wilson is a brief overview of the historical highlights of one of the world's most influential cities. The book is actually more of a commentary on the city than a history of it. Wilson is an excellent historical writer, but he was asked to do the impossible, which is to tell the London story in 200 pages.

Despite these limitations, A. N. Wilson, does an admirable job of walking the reader through the important moments of history in the life of this famous city. At times, the reader feels as though the author is narrating a life story. This approach helps maintain reading interest as you consider the magic and majesty of a 2,000-year account of a living and breathing city.


Wilson offers memorable portraits in miniature as the reader sails through the history of the city. From Roman and Norse times, to the 21st century, London the great city comes to life for the reader. Wilson is not only a writer of history but also a biographer and a novelist. He has written earlier on such towering subjects as Leo Tolstoy, the apostle Paul and C. S. Lewis.


This is a book for those who love British history or who plan to make a visit to the historic city. It is well worth the brief time for the reader to take this book and make it a friend for a few hours. It will help you to appreciate the ancient and the contemporary.

Granted there is an abundance of biographies focusing on the towering figure of the 20th century, Winston Churchill, but Christopher Catherwood has written a fascinating self-described, "post-revisionist" view of the leader of Great Britain during the darkest days of World War II. Catherwood is not a novice historian. He teaches both at Cambridge and at the University of Richmond. He has served as an advisor to the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Additionally, Catherwood is a lecturer at the Churchill Memorial Library in Fulton, Missouri.


What makes this book so different from the plethora of other Churchill biographies? Unlike so many other writers who tend to turn a blind eye to the faults of the famous statesman, Catherwood describes him as "The Flawed Genius of World War II." That description is actually the subtitle of this examination of Winston Churchill and his wartime leadership.


Christopher Catherwood contends that Churchill's obsession with maintaining India as a colony, and protecting the Balkans, namely Greece, drove the allied strategy in the early days of the war. This strategy was to hit Hitler at his soft underbelly, in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. Catherwood and others feel that Churchill should have deferred to the thinking of George C. Marshall and the US strategists who wanted a D-Day invasion to occur in April 1943 rather than May-June 1944. The difference in the more than one year delay, in their minds, is a huge one.


An earlier invasion would have guaranteed the advanced of Allied forces straight at the heart of Germany, when the Nazis forces were more committed to fighting the Soviet Union. This would have meant an earlier end to the war and a less robust influence of the Communist led Soviet Union in central and eastern Europe.


Does this theory have plausibility? Churchill was a romanticist and colonialist, so his thinking was one of protection and preservation of India and other strategic places of British influence. The Soviets paid a huge price to defend their homeland in the first part of the war. Americans, led ably by General George C. Marshall, were itching to get on with the European theatre, as they had done in the Pacific. Therefore, some truth can be given to this post-revisionist view.


However, as Catherwood artfully considers, without the stubborn courage of Winston Churchill, there would not have been a free Great Britain following the terrible days of 1940. Churchill's voice of inspiration and his defiance in the face of what some believed was impending defeat made a significant contribution to the time table, which was later considered. Without a free Great Brittain, there would not have been a cross-channel invasion in 44 much less 43.


Call Winston Churchill a flawed genius if you like, but he was a difference-making leader, in a time when there were few present to follow. Churchill knew how to forge an Anglo-American alliance, which shaped history for the good, and, yes, to an extent for some in the Cold War era, far less than the best outcomes. A superhuman, he was not. A courageous and outspoken leader he most certainly was. Churchill has a secure place in history, despite admiring critics or those who see him otherwise.