Prelude to Greatness

Winston S. Churchill, Vol. Ill, The Challenge of War, 1914-1916 By Martin Gilbert Houghton, 988 pp., $15 This third volume of Churchill’s biography, which is gradually being erected like some huge monument, is very properly dedicated “to the Memory of Randolph Churchill.” When Randolph died in 1968, he had completed the first two volumes of what he called “the Great Work.” After much discussion, the torch was handed on to Martin Gilbert, a young Oxford historian who had been one of Randolph’s research assistants. And we can see now that Mr. Gilbert is an outstandingly worthy successor.

The style, inevitably, is different. Randolph’s individuality, though subdued in the Great Work, still colored it. Instead, we now have the heavy guns of a professional historian, dedicating himself to what will almost certainly be the major achievement of his lifetime.

AL

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Anthony Lejeune

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Winston S. Churchill, Vol. Ill, The Challenge of War, 1914-1916 By Martin Gilbert Houghton, 988 pp., $15 This third volume of Churchill’s biography, which is gradually being erected like some huge monument, is very properly dedicated “to the Memory of Randolph Churchill.” When Randolph died in 1968, he had completed the first two volumes of what he called “the Great Work.” After much discussion, the torch was handed on to Martin Gilbert, a young Oxford historian who had been one of Randolph’s research assistants. And we can see now that Mr. Gilbert is an outstandingly worthy successor.

The style, inevitably, is different. Randolph’s individuality, though subdued in the Great Work, still colored it. Instead, we now have the heavy guns of a professional historian, dedicating himself to what will almost certainly be the major achievement of his lifetime.