The God Con
  • The God Con
  • About
  • Book Purchase/Contact Author
  • Index
  • HMS Terror Wood Model
Tap the quote to scroll...

​
​The God Con
Pay
Pray Obey​

Certainly not The Good Book,
But perhaps a good book.
Picture

The Splendid and the Vile; Erik Larson; 2020; Crown NY; 502 pgs, index, sources

21/9/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
​I do not have a lot to say about this book. A friend suggested it and I read it. It is well written, engrossing at times, and had many insights into the terrible struggle to survive that England went through in the first years of the war. There are a few very colorful characters, and few dark ones as well:

The image of Churchill walking around naked, drinking brandy and champagne, barking orders, and smoking his cigars is almost a cliché.

Lord Beaverbrook, the most interesting personality in the book, almost single-handedly ramped up airplane production and won the Battle of Britain. The Battle of Britain was the air war during the summer of 1940. The Blitz was the bombing of London and other civilian sites, and it went on much longer.  The Battle Britain ended when the Blitz began.

Lindemann is a character I knew a bit about from other readings. He was Churchill's right-hand man,  science advisor, and general all-round dickhead... hated by everyone. "Often wrong but never in doubt" sums him up pretty well. While he may have contributed to the war in many positive ways, the reverse was also true. For example, a few years later, he dismissed the idea of the V2 as a  physically impossibility. He was very, very wrong.

Randolph was Churchill's ne'er-do-well son (his other children were women). A drunken, philandering, gambler… he spent about a million dollars a year (today's money) on booze, broads and gambling!

Rudolph Hess was the most interesting German character that was explored. I learned a few new things  about his ill-fated trip to England to make peace. He would remain in Spandau prison, its last inmate, until he killed himself at age 94.

Adolph Galland is another interesting German character. He was an ace fighter pilot. I read his biography in my 20s. By the war's end, he was a general and ran the entire fighter defense of Germany. Later on, he was a technical consultant on the making of the movie "The Battle of Britain". He was the only pilot who was allowed, personally, by Hitler, to smoke cigars and fly at the same time. He smoked 20 a day.

The other principle characters are the remaining members of the Churchill family. A low-key Peyton Place.

Politically, the first years of the war were about survival and getting the US into the fray. The Lend-Lease Act was a big part of that. The pressure of constant bombing had eased up by mid '41, as Hitler turned his eye to the East. Within a week of Pearl Harbor (Dec 7, '41), the US was at war with both Japan and Germany. Germany declared war on the US, and the US reciprocated. The US was the only country that Germany declared war on in WWII! This is where the book ends.

This is a long book, but an easy read. If you skip a sentence or two, you don't miss much. I normally scribble notes into the books I read, and then summarize them afterward. I did that here, but only scribbled about a dozen times. In other words, I learned very little worth knowing. But if you want to get a feel for the gestalt at the time; the attitudes and feelings of both the government players and the people; and the nature of the suffering they went though, I would recommend it.





0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Lee Moller is a life-long skeptic and atheist and the author of The God Con.

    Archives

    December 2024
    August 2024
    May 2024
    January 2024
    November 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017

    Categories

    All
    Books
    Comment
    Critical Thinking And Skepticism
    Donald Trump
    Quotes
    RCC
    Reviews
    Science
    The God Con

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • The God Con
  • About
  • Book Purchase/Contact Author
  • Index
  • HMS Terror Wood Model