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Mirrors of Greatness
- Churchill and the Leaders Who Shaped Him
- Narrated by: Ethan Kelly
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
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Mirrors of Greatness
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Summary
A TELEGRAPH BEST HISTORY BOOK OF 2023
Winston Churchill followed his own star. He yearned to be ‘great’, to gain historical immortality. And he did so through deeds and words: his actions as a soldier and politician, gilded by his writings as a journalist and historian.
But Churchill’s path to greatness was also defined by the leaders he encountered along the way – friends and foes, at home and abroad. Men of power such as Hitler and Mussolini, Roosevelt and Stalin, David Lloyd George, Neville Chamberlain and Charles de Gaulle. And the haunting presence of the adored father who had seen nothing of merit in his troublesome son. In these men Churchill discerned greatness, or its absence, in ways that influenced his own career.
This book includes some whom Churchill would not have deemed ‘great’, but who – in our own day – offer alternative mirrors of what that word might mean. Mahatma Gandhi, who infuriated Churchill by exploiting the power of powerlessness. Clement Attlee, whose heretical vision of ‘Great Britain’ was socialist and post-imperial. And his darling Clementine, channelling her ‘pinko’ sentiments to become Winston’s essential helpmate and most devoted critic.
Mirrors of Greatness offers vivid new perspectives on Churchill’s life and work, showing how this unique man – with dazzling gifts and jagged flaws – learned from his ‘great contemporaries’ and what they saw in him.
Critic reviews
‘A highly imaginative and thought-provoking way of exploring the personality of a man who, like him or loathe him, left an indelible mark on our age’ Adam Zamoyski
'Erudite. Authoritative. Compellingly written, and with pace and verve. Reynolds reveals much that is new in a gripping narrative history of the Great Man, one that will have you turning the pages into the early hours. It certainly did me. Like all good books, I shall return to this again and again’ Damien Lewis
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What listeners say about Mirrors of Greatness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Routini
- 08-01-24
Narrator abysmal
It is difficult to understand how a professional narrator can mangle quite so many words and names as does the one for this book. At the end, it means you end up simply waiting for the next howler, and it totally gets in the way of the listening experience.
Here are some words he gets wrong:
Buttressing -to rhyme with distressing
Bete noire - with an acute accent on the second e of bete
Sea of Mum Ara
Tu est fini (rhyming with lest, for a word that doesn’t have a t on the end of it)
Premier to rhyme with Vermeer (which is give him as an American pronunciation if it wasn’t for all the endless other things)
Premiership - ditto
Sciences Po - with the first word read as if it were in basic English
Amour propre with an acute accent on the final e
Schlieffen plan - can’t even remember how he mangled that one
Marlborough - to rhyme with Carl Boro
Pince nez - forget now how he murdered this one
A fay accompli
The Marseilles Ease
Marshall Pet Eng. Then later in the same chapter, Marshall Pet Ay-ng
Clements Ow
The Charm Pelisse (which you walk down in Paris)
These are really not unknown words or proper nouns. the Champs Elysées? There’s a narrator in the world who doesn’t know how to say that? And how can anyone narrating a history book not know how to pronounce Clemenceau? Or Petain? Or the Marseillaise?
I’m not suggesting for a moment he has to say them in French: merely that the basic English pronunciation of the name is well known. Betay noir? Amour propray? For goodness’ sake!
The book itself is enjoyable enough. Not ground-breaking by any means, but an interesting angle on old material. But honestly, the narration is tragic. It’s so off-putting.
Sorry to be harsh. Weirdly, the general pitch and tone of the narration and the words in between are fine. But then these random mid-pronunciations pop up all over the place, and they drive you (well, they drove me!) round the twist.
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