Boris Johnson

What a hoot this book is by a man who was to become Prime Minister. It is lively, energetic and rambunctious. It is history with imagination. It explains a lot about Johnson's eurosceptic views. It seems that he attended a European school in Belgium and all the children kept to their own national cliques and customs. On page 50 Johnson quotes Cromer on the subject of Brits who are a bit stuffy: ‘The problem, bluntly, is that we are snobbish and racist, he says, and so there has been no show more proper ‘fusion’ between the British and their alien subjects’. Everything harks back to the Romans and their unified empire. That success has never been repeated. An all powerful leader and emperor is needed. And guess who that emperor might be: Johnson?

November 6th 2019 show less

Boris Johnson is not a professional historian, but he is a good popular writer. His training as a journalist and politician come across well here. He has folksy anecdotes (politician), puts himself in the story (journalist), and makes wonderful similes (popular writer) that you could never put in, say, a dissertation.

This is a scattershot biography, historiography, and apologies of Churchill. (It helps to know a little bit about Churchill going in, and makes the whole book richer too.) show more Besides the endless stories and history, the whole book strives to prove that Churchill (a) had certain traits of greatness and (b) was a great man who greatly and individually influenced history. This counters the notions in academia and among the intelligentsia that (a) Churchill was a warmongering, racist, dundering, colonialist, bad guy, and (b) that history is not influenced by "great men" but impersonal great forces like economics and big history.

A delightful amuse-bouche of a book. show less

Boris Johnson, the wild haired cycling Mayor of London, wears his heart on his sleeve in this book, proclaiming London as the premier world city, leading and excelling in literature, governance, social reform, finance, art and science. He makes a strong case with wonderful biographical sketches of well-known (e.g. William the Conqueror, Shakespeare, Turner) and less well-known Londoners (Hooke, Wilkes, Rothschild).
He surprised me by taking Churchill down a peg or two. If you've heard Boris show more Johnson speak -100% enthusiasm, and great dose of wit and intellect- you know what to expect from this book. show less

Informative, enlightening and often genuinely funny, The Churchill Factor is a character sketch of the iconic Prime Minister that seeks to define what made him such a force in the destiny of the 20th century. The book is a staunch defense of the 'great man' theory of history, demonstrating how Churchill's personality and perspective shaped the major events of his career (and, critically, were essential to winning the Second World War). Johnson arranges events from Churchill's life show more thematically rather than strictly chronologically and is lavish with his own ideas and insights. While Johnson never hides his great admiration for Churchill, he does not gloss over his subject's less brilliant moments or the accusations that others have levied against him. This is a personal book, written by a politician and journalist about a politician and journalist, and is almost as illuminating about its author as it is about its subject. Recommended. show less