This is the first volume of a four volume history of the English-Speaking, and it covers the misty and mysterious beginnings of "Britannia" (about 55 years before Christ), up through Richard III looking for his horse at the battle of Bosworth. The sentences roll on, and the pages, tiny print and all, also roll on by. It's really this aspect of both authors that I find so enjoyable, that they're philosophers as well as historians, and are as interested in and have as much to say about the human nature driving great events as they do about the events themselves.Ĭhurchill could really write. In those moments you have absolutely no trouble picturing him delivering the speeches he's so famous for thundering in front parliament or great armies, and swaying world events. Like Gibbon, Churchill's prose, while always engaging and expansive becomes, when he reaches a subject or a moment that he's particularly passionate about, epic, powerful, and moving. I can also see how Churchill received a Nobel Prize in literature. I have to say that, so far (this the first volume) I can definitely see a similarity between the two works, both in terms of the history itself and the writing style. I originally picked this book up because I read that Churchill was inspired by Gibbon, whose Decline and Fall is one of the most amazing works I've ever read.
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