To be honest, before picking this book up, I might well have failed the quiz question “Who was Winston Churchill’s wife?” However, I am now better educated. The author has a very no nonsense writing style, which kept me turning the pages. The numerous references gave me reason to be confident in her research and integrity as a historian.
As much as anything, I found the book to be a great lesson on 20th Century history. There is much about the last 100 years of so that I did not understand, but some gaps have now been filled. For example, since the Germans were dead scared of the Russians [communists], we were clearly allies with them in WW2. So, how come the Cold War happened? I now have some understanding of the politics.
Obviously, the book told me much about Winston and the rest of the family that I did not previously appreciate. By the end of the book, although I learned lots about Clementine’s life and appreciate how important she was and how unrecognized she has been, I am not really sure that I understand her as a person. She very much subjugated her own character by devoting herself to Winston; maybe the real Clementine was just not very visible.
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