Name: The Splendid and the Vile
Rating: 3.949367088607595 (79 reviews)
ISBN: 9780008274948

Erik Larson

Draws on personal diaries, archival documents and declassified intelligence in a portrait of Winston Churchill that explores his day-to-day experiences during the Blitz and his role in uniting England

A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During the Blitz

The Splendid and the Vile

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers an intimate chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz—an inspiring portrait of courage and leadership in a time of unprecedented crisis “One of [Erik Larson’s] best books yet . . . perfectly timed for the moment.”—Time • “A bravura performance by one of America’s greatest storytellers.”—NPR NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE EAST HAMPTON STAR AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • Vogue • NPR • The Washington Post • The Globe & Mail • Fortune • Bloomberg • New York Post • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • LibraryReads • PopMatters On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless.” It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill’s “Secret Circle,” to whom he turns in the hardest moments. The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.

A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

Andrew Hawkins

I really enjoyed this book. Gave a great first person look at the Churchill family and the UK side of WW2. Have a lot more respect for the British tenacity during the war. This book took me a lot longer to read than normal for some reason. 

Kaitlin Simpson

I tried with this book, I really tried. It was so boring and it felt like I was reading a text book rather than a nonfiction novel. I even tried the audio book but it just dragged. If you love Churchill and reading text books in your free time, you’ll probably like this. However, this is not my cup of tea.

Sonia Grgas

This was a slow read started at the beginning of the quarantine days. It serves as a reminder that things could always be worse. I cannot imagine living with the knowledge that you might be killed by a bomb any day and not be able to do much about it.

Recommended for all the Winston Churchill buffs out there.

Andrew John Kinney

Having read quite a bit about the Battle of Britain, and the Battle of France, this was an enjoyable read, and I did learn a few new things about the 1940-41 European War. It's easy in the Twenty-first Century to cast a jaundiced eye at Winston Churchill; his desire to maintain British sovereignty over what were blandly called "colonies" at the time, his inaction with regard to the Bengal famine, not to mention his casual racism, have not aged well. But one is required to acknowledge that he and Britain fought for the basic freedom of people in Europe; he was the leader of the last great nation opposing Hitler, at a time when Hitler ruled all of Europe except a handful of small or neutral countries. 

I was interested to learn about Max Beaverbrook's whirlwind approach to increasing aircraft production as Minister of Aircraft Production. The RAF, along with the Navy, was the only thing in the way of Hitler's planned invasion of Britain, and there is no reason to think the British Army would have fared better than the French Army against the Wehrmacht if the Germans had established a beachhead in England; indeed, there is plenty of evidence to say they would have done worse. So increasing the number of fighter aircraft over Britain was the top priority, and Churchill treated it that way by putting a take-no-prisoners manager like Beaverbrook in charge of it. 

Much attention is given to Churchill's relationship with FDR, and Churchill rightly viewed obtaining material support from the US his most important task. Churchill and DeGaulle both knew that getting the US into the war was the only sure way to defeat Hitler. There is a story, which is an even better story because it is true, that DeGaulle was sitting in his quarters talking to an assistant on December 7th when the news came over the radio that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. DeGaulle sat up straight, looking a bit stunned, and then said to his companion, "Well, we've won the war". Churchill's reaction, though a bit more subtle was essentially the same.

I was a little put off by the interleaved story of Mary Churchill's love life (and Pamela Churchill's), but I read a bit in other sources about Mary's subsequent service in anti-aircraft batteries from 1941-45, and I take her more seriously now. She rose through the ranks to command an AA battery by war's end, something I did not even know was possible for women in WW2, and later she led a happy married life. Churchill's son Randolph, however, is an object lesson in why a parent should not spoil their children.

There are notable gaps in the story of Churchill's first year as PM, such as the absence of almost any discussion of DeGaulle, or of the French or Polish Resistance, or of SOE. There is no acknowledgment of the contributions of the Polish airmen who were so effective in the Battle of Britain. But this is popular history, of course, and Larson has written a very readable book, even if some important details are omitted. A good companion and corrective to the hagiography of Larson's book is Lynne Olson's Last Hope Island, if you're interested in a somewhat more unvarnished story that nonetheless is a page-turner.

So I enjoyed this book, while fully aware of its omissions and its adulatory tone toward Churchill.

Kristi Brockelsby

This really lived up to all of the hype. I love history but can very rarely read biographies or historical non-fiction. I like my reading to be an escape and diversion. The writing style was lively and the subject matter kept me engaged. It is long - be prepared to devote some hours to it.

Natalie Sypeck 

No rating.
Listened to audiobook

Enjoyed the listening experience. 
Liked the authors writing style and the use of personal journal entries. Got a good glimpse of not just the war strategies side of things, but also the day to day.

Jess Madson

The only books that sound interesting right now are the ones about ww2 - I have fully become a dad. This one was real good

Wynn Netherland

A fascinating history of The Blitz. With a narrative lens focusing mostly on the concentric social circles around Winston Churchill, Larson does an excellent job of portraying the precarious situation Britain faced in standing alone against the Nazi aerial bombardment and impending invasion until America's entry into the war in 1941.

A Quiet Little Library

4.5
This is an amazing book. I loved that we got perspective into everyone's lives, as well as America and Germany. His use of diaries and written accounts of events to bring dialogue to the book is something I have never read before, and makes for a reading experience not too dissimilar from reading fiction. This made you feel connected to the people as if they were characters in a novel, and I learned so much while reading this book.

Roberta Dee

3.5 stars. Very good overall. However, it could have been edited down to be more concise.

Anna Adams

Best book I've read this year. Every time I put it down, I couldn't wait to pick it up. I thought about it when I wasn't reading, and yet, I tried to savor it. I've been interested in Winston Churchill for many years, and I've read volumes and volumes, but this taught me new and interesting tidbits about what went on during the first year of WWII in Winston Churchill's life. An amazing man and an amazing book.

Ben Nathan

Another excellent entry from Larson. Lots of information I didn't know presented in his narrative fashion that made it even more fascinating than it would have been otherwise. Glad I read it as now I can talk to my dad more intelligently about the battle of Britain.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author delivers a startlingly fresh portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz.

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

Michael Hessling

Outstanding. It took me a long time to finish the book; no fault of the book itself though! Mesmerizing.

EDIT: here’s the thing. The more you read, the more you learn. Churchill put Indians in concentration camps. The British government first barricaded the underground and wouldn’t let its own citizens shelter there. That this book doesn’t reference any shameful bits is shameful.

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

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