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Hero of the Empire
BRITISH HISTORY
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BRITISH HISTORY SELECTION: HERO OF THE EMPIRE - DISCUSSION THREAD - NON SPOILER THREAD
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At age twenty-four, Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England one day, despite the fact he had just lost his first election campaign for Parliament. He believed that to achieve his goal he must do something spectacular on the battlefield. Despite deliberately putting himself in extreme danger as a British Army officer in colonial wars in India and Sudan, and as a journalist covering a Cuban uprising against the Spanish, glory and fame had eluded him.
Churchill arrived in South Africa in 1899, valet and crates of vintage wine in tow, there to cover the brutal colonial war the British were fighting with Boer rebels. But just two weeks after his arrival, the soldiers he was accompanying on an armored train were ambushed, and Churchill was taken prisoner. Remarkably, he pulled off a daring escape--but then had to traverse hundreds of miles of enemy territory, alone, with nothing but a crumpled wad of cash, four slabs of chocolate, and his wits to guide him.
The story of his escape is incredible enough, but then Churchill enlisted, returned to South Africa, fought in several battles, and ultimately liberated the men with whom he had been imprisoned.
Churchill would later remark that this period, "could I have seen my future, was to lay the foundations of my later life." Millard spins an epic story of bravery, savagery, and chance encounters with a cast of historical characters--including Rudyard Kipling, Lord Kitchener, and Mohandas Gandhi--with whom he would later share the world stage. But Hero of the Empire is more than an adventure story, for the lessons Churchill took from the Boer War would profoundly affect 20th century history.
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Chosen as a Washington Post and New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2016
"A thrilling account...This book is an awesome nail-biter and top-notch character study rolled into one...Could someone be persuaded to make a movie about this episode of his life? I’d watch."
—New York Times Critic Jennifer Senior's Top Ten Books of 2016
“Gripping…tremendously readable and enjoyable…”
—Alex von Tunzelmann, The New York Times Book Review
"[A] truly fascinating book."
—Financial Times
"A gripping story...It's a thrilling journey and Millard tells it with gusto."
—The Guardian
“Millard’s tome is a slam-bang study of Churchill’s wit and wile as he navigates the Boer War like [a] proto-James Bond.”
—USA Today
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of September 2016: It should come as no surprise that Winston Churchill was an ambitious, young go-getter long before he became Sir Winston Churchill—but you might be surprised by how interesting his young life was. The son of Lord Randolph Churchill—who ascended to the position of leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the Exchequer before dying at the age of forty five—Winston Churchill set off as a young man to find glory on the battlefield, with an eye toward ultimately emulating his father’s success in politics. The young Winston played a part in four wars on three different continents, the last of which was the Boer War. His experience as a prisoner in that war is the jumping off point of this book, and author Millard puts her narrative gifts to work as she describes his harrowing escape, setting the man in his time, and illustrating the man to describe his times. – Chris Schluep, The Amazon Book
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Candice Millard is the author of three books, all New York Times bestsellers and named one of the best books of the year by publications from the New York Times to the Washington Post. Her first book, The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and a Book Sense Pick, won the William Rockhill Nelson Award and was a finalist for the Quill Awards. It has been printed in Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese and Korean, as well as a British edition. Millard's second book, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine & the Murder of a President, won the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, the PEN Center USA award for Research Nonfiction, the One Book-One Lincoln Award, the Ohioana Award and the Kansas Notable Book Award. Her most recent book, Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape and the Making of Winston Churchill, was an Indie Next pick, a top ten critics pick by the New York Times and named Amazon’s number one history book of 2016. Millard's work has also appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book World, the Guardian, National Geographic and Time magazine. She lives in Kansas City with her husband and three children.
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CONTENTS
Cover Also by Candice Millard
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
PROLOGUE
PART ONE - PUSHFUL, THE YOUNGER
CHAPTER 1:Death by Inches
CHAPTER 2:The Graven Palm
CHAPTER 3:The Scion
CHAPTER 4:Blowing the Trumpet
PART TWO - INTO AFRICA
CHAPTER 5: “Send Her Victorious”
CHAPTER 6:“We Have Now Gone Far Enough”
CHAPTER 7:The Blackest of All Days
CHAPTER 8:Land of Stone and Scrub
PART THREE - CHANCE
CHAPTER 9:The Death Trap
CHAPTER 10:A Pity and a Blunder
CHAPTER 11:Into the Lion’s Jaws
CHAPTER 12:Grim Sullen Death
PART FOUR - PRISONERS OF WAR
CHAPTER 13:To Submit, to Obey, to Endure
CHAPTER 14:“I Regret to Inform You”
CHAPTER 15:A City of the Dead
CHAPTER 16:Black Week
CHAPTER 17:A Scheme of Desperate and Magnificent Audacity
CHAPTER 18:“I Shall Go On Alone”
PART FIVE - IN THE HEART OF THE ENEMY’S COUNTRY
CHAPTER 19:Toujours de l’Audace
CHAPTER 20:“To Take My Leave”
CHAPTER 21:Alone
CHAPTER 22:“Wie Is Daar?”
CHAPTER 23:An Invisible Enemy
CHAPTER 24:The Light of Hope
CHAPTER 25: The Plan
CHAPTER 26:The Red and the Blue
EPILOGUE
Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Illustration Credits
About the Author
Illustrations
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Hero of the Empire
THE BOER WAR, A DARING ESCAPE
AND THE MAKING OF WINSTON CHURCHILL
“Gripping…tremendously readable and enjoyable…
Her prose gallops along; her short, action-packed chapters often screech to a halt on a cliffhanger.”
—Alex von Tunzelmann—
The New York Times Book Review
"A gripping story...It's a thrilling journey
and Millard tells it with gusto."
—The Guardian—
"As involving as a popcorn thriller...Excellent."
—Jennifer Senior—
The New York Times
"Well-researched and highly-readable.”
—Con Coughlin—
Finest Hour
"In "Hero of the Empire" . . . Candice Millard,
a smooth-writing popular historian, sets her sights
on an earlier episode of Churchillian regeneration.
It does not disappoint."
—Roger Lowenstein—
The Wall Street Journal
“Few can match the originality and narrative power of Candice Millard’s surprisingly revealing account”
—Saul David—
The Telegraph
"Combining vivid narrative and original
scholarship, Candice Millard reveals how Winston Churchill laid the foundations of his political career during the Boer War. Supremely courageous, flagrantly ambitious and incredibly lucky, young Winston emerges as the authentic hero of this thrilling tale of imperial derring-do."
—Piers Brendon—
Former Keeper of the Archives Centre,
Churchill College, Cambridge
"With consummate narrative skill and admirable first-hand research, Candice Millard has added to the canon of great works on Winston Churchill a book essential to a better understanding of his life and personality. Hero of The Empire is both eminently readable and exceptionally informative about the evolution of one of Britain's greatest statesmen."
—Phil Reed—
Former Director of the Churchill War Rooms
"Completely engrossing."
—Andrew Roberts—
New York Times bestselling author of Masters
and Commanders and Napoleon: A Life
"Millard has taken a well-known piece of Churchilliana and skilfully turned it into a large historical narrative. Using many unpublished sources, she weaves into a nail-biting escape story a larger picture of Africa at the cusp of the 20th century. Her eye for humanising detail, her vivid topographical descriptions and her keen awareness of the realities (and surrealities) of war come together in a truly fascinating book."
—Financial Times—
“A rich narrative…Millard zeroes in on the epic beginnings of an epic public life [and] masters all the details. Millard’s tome is a slam-bang study of Churchill’s wit and wile as he navigates the Boer War like [a] proto-James Bond.”
—USA Today—
“Riveting...meticulous…Millard’s brilliant modus operandi is to identify a singular, little-explored event in a well-documented life. She then uses that very pointed story as a wedge that she drives into the person’s character, cracking it wide open in a manner usually reserved for fiction. And so it is with her account of young Churchill. Millard has no shortage
of strengths as a writer, but particularly spectacular
is her ability to make history and historical figures
not only relatable, but absolutely relevant to contemporary readers.”
—Kansas City Star—
"Thanks to her formidable storytelling skills, she has succeeded in infusing this familiar narrative with color, excitement and life."
—Washington Post—
“Millard ably weaves a seamless and gripping narrative of the future statesman's early career
and involvement in the Boer War ... [V]ivid, entertaining ... A fresh, captivating history
of the enduringly colorful Churchill.”
—Kirkus—
(starred review)
“Biographer Millard “gets at” her subject
by a somewhat out-of-left-field path that leaves
the reader satisfied and feeling that her approach
is right and perfect ... Millard’s rendering of the exciting details of Churchill’s heroic exploits
result in a magnificently told story.”
—Booklist—
(starred review)
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However, please tell us why you wanted to read this book with the group and where you are reading from. We will kick off the book itself on September 1st.
I was unsure which book you were discussing in your post but thought in either case - it was more appropriate for the glossary. It has been moved there.
I will open this thread up to introductions soon once I get the weekly syllabus set up.
This is a British History, Military History and Prime Minister selection.