Chasing Churchill: The Travels of Winston Churchill - Hardcover

Sandys (Churchill Wanted Dead or Alive) is the great leader's granddaughter, and her new book is an amiable history of Churchill's many travels. As a young, extremely ambitious military officer and war correspondent, Churchill traveled to Cuba in 1895 to witness a bloody guerrilla war. Later, in India and South Africa, he experienced war firsthand. He was famously captured by the Boers and made a daring escape, which, Sandys says, turned him into an international celebrity and helped launch his political career. Churchill loved the British Empire unreservedly and traveled it widely. Sandys follows in his footsteps, seeking (mostly in vain) for present-day evidence of her grandfather's journeys. She devotes much of the book to describing Churchill's diplomatic trips during WWII. Indeed, Sandys says Churchill's tireless traveling to Washington and Yalta largely created the famous "special relationship" between Britain and the United States. After the war, Churchill traveled all over Europe, especially the south of France, in order to paint and write. Through describing these journeys, Sandys gives a clear portrait of the charismatic leader: constantly smoking his famous cigars, drinking lots of whiskey and living a decidedly nocturnal existence (he liked to work into the wee hours of the night). Sandys accompanied her grandfather on several of his later trips, and she vividly recalls a 1959 cruise on Aristotle Onassis's yacht, with a rather insufferable Maria Callas. While Sandys doesn't reveal anything fresh about Churchill, she does emphasize one thing his world travels helped make him into a legendary leader. B&w photos, maps.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Sandys, Churchill's granddaughter, relates that by the time he was 25, Churchill had traveled to Cuba, India, the Sudan, and South Africa. During the next 50 years, his journeys continued; in middle age, painting became what Sandys describes as "his spur to travel." In the 1920s and 1930s his passion and talent for painting made him seek out places filled with sunshine--Italy, Morocco, and the south of France. His trips entailed both pleasure and work, and sometimes--at least until the end of World War II--danger and hardship. He always traveled in style, Sandys writes; even as a young officer in the British army, he had a soldier to pack his suitcase. In 1946 he traveled with President Truman from Missouri to Washington by train and spent some of the time playing cards. Sandys accompanied her grandfather on some of his later trips, including a cruise aboard Aristotle Onassis' yacht Christina. Containing a foreword by Mary Soames, Churchill's youngest daughter, this book is a fascinating chronicle. George Cohen
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