Churchill's War Lab: Code Breakers, Scientists, and the Mavericks Churchill Led to Victory

As an account of the factors affecting Churchill's personality and forming his approach to the Second World War, this works well and the account of the political pressures and the way that they skewed things was fascinating. Unfortunately that is not what the book claims to be about and thus I felt unable to rate it above ***. The human contents of the "war lab" are too small a part of it and what/how they achieved what they did is only touched on in passing and seemingly to illustrate other points. I find that a real pity as there are clearly so many pieces of work that all helped towards the end, from the apparently trivial such as changing the colour of life jackets from yellow to orange to the detailed analysis of the effects of show more bomb damage, and the better known ones such as the code breaking work and the "portable harbours". In three words - an opportunity missed. show less

The main focus of the book is Churchill and his bio. There is certainly some post-modern thinking/comments from the author about Churchill and his views on India, suffrage, progressivism, warrior spirit, and the British Empire. Not the sort of thing you hear from his contemporaries.

I really enjoyed learning a little about the science and how involved Churchill was in making sure Britain was taking every advantage science could provide during the war. Sadly, while the tile would lead one to believe science is the focus of the book the focus remains firmly on the biography of Churchill and an overview of the war. An easy read but probably not the best book on Churchill or the scientists supporting Britain during WWII.

A pro churchill biography of his attempts over his years to assist the odd balls and the mavericks to develop their and his pet ideas.

Long on accepted history but short (very) on anything new; the author is a film producer and the narrative sets the scene for the idiosyncracies of the man but fails to develop many of the ideas suggested by the title. Although it's easy to read and the style is crisp, I would have liked more detail on many of the quirky things that went on during the war and less on accepted biographical details.