He manages to convey all the reader needs to know about two men to whom battalions of biographies have been devoted." Roberts does provide some new information on Churchill's use of secret intelligence, but otherwise this is familiar fare-a tale certainly worth being told again, but perhaps not deserving the great puff on the dust jacket.
It is not a particularly sophisticated analysis of the dynamics of leadership, and the story of the clash of these two titans has been told so often-most recently by John Lukacs-that there is not a lot more to be added. This is not one of Andrew Roberts' better books.
Inevitably, Churchill's people-management skills and ability to listen to advice won out over Hitler's control-freakery and over-reliance on sycophants. The second half of the book brings out their major differences during the war. Both men also had compelling powers of oratory and a carefully contrived political persona built around props (Churchill's cigar and homburg hat, Hitler's plain uniform), hideaway homes (Chartwell and the Berghof) and careful public relations.
The first half of the book takes us through the lives of the two men up to 1939, showing how both men had a strong sense of destiny and mission-indeed both put out a sort of mission statement (Churchill in his 1900 novel Savrola Hitler in his Mein Kampf). Roberts, the author of the prize-winning Salisbury: Victorian Titan and, more recently, the highly acclaimed Napoleon and Wellington, sets out to identify the ingredients of successful leadership in peacetime and wartime. To what extent did the outcome of the Second World War turn on the two very different personalities who led the two major combatant nations? This intriguing question is the subject of Andrew Roberts' Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership, published to tie in with the television series of the same name.
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