Looking at the title of the book I thought, "wow a book about Reagan and Churchill, what could be better?" But in the end I thought the book was more just a telling of facts more than an indepth review of their leadership characteristics and I never found in the book where it talked about the making of great leaders. It just seemed to say everything that happened to Reagan and Churchill and that seemed to be enough for the author. I did learn some things about Reagan that I did not know so I will go back to this book for those facts but it just was not what I thought it would be from the book's description.

Steven Hayward extends his research of Churchill and Reagan to look at comparisons of leadership skills, styles and effectiveness. While the comparisons are interesting, I found it difficult to see the relevance. As a specific comparative analysis, the book brings forward otherwise obscure parallels in the life and times of these two great leaders. The title is misleading in that I found no insights on "the making" of an extraordinary leader. As a book on leadership, Mr. Hayward's work gives examples of Churchill and Reagan leadership, but the work doesn't analyze the leadership examples in a way that the reader could learn leadership tips.

Overall, I found the book interesting, but not terribly relevant.

Hayward does a wonderful job in only 170 short pages of describing the similarites between Churchill and Reagan. It is a very quick read and will leave you feeling good about these two men and the accomplishments they achieved while in office.

Hayward makes this statement, "Greatness is ultimately a question of character: Good character does not change with the times: it has eternal qualities." Are there any great leaders with character today? As in the lives of Churchill and Reagan, history will tell.

Hayward does a wonderful job in only 170 short pages of describing the similarites between Churchill and Reagan. It is a very quick read and will leave you feeling good about these two men and the accomplishments they achieved while in office.

Hayward makes this statement, "Greatness is ultimately a question of character: Good character does not change with the times: it has eternal qualities." Are there any great leaders with character today? As in the lives of Churchill and Reagan, history will tell.

I found this book to be quite interesting but not at all what I had anticipated. Based on the title, I expected to see an erudite tome analyzing the lives of Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill culminating in a discussion of how great leaders, such as these, are "made." I was, of course, being rather naïve, for if anyone knew how great leaders are produced they wouldn't be so rare in human history. What I found, instead, was a side-by-side comparison of two great men with emphasis on the parallels in their careers; the manner in which they were viewed by their contemporaries and the media in their own times; their visionary natures; the constancy of their actions; and the many connections between them which can be drawn when their characters, actions, writings, speeches, and strangely enough their educations are closely examined.

This latter point, their educations, may have come the closest to telling us how great leaders are created. Both men, it would seem, were rather poor students in their early years, but both men spent most of the remainder of their lifetimes reading and writing and, in effect, educating themselves without any presumed experts to tell them that this or that theory or manner of thinking was incorrect. In their solitude, much like Abraham Lincoln, they were left to decide for themselves what was right and what was wrong. As a consequence, neither Reagan nor Churchill ended up conforming to the conventional wisdom of his time, with the result that neither one was fully understood nor appreciated during his political lifetime.

This is an excellent book filled with little known, or at least little remembered, facts, anecdotes, quotes, and excerpts concerning two great statesmen. The comparisons are many, with surprising similarities that do both men great honor. Bottom line - This is a book well worth reading. I highly recommend it, but don't expect what the title offers but the book fails to deliver.

This is a short, fascinating, and thought-provoking read -- something that's always hard to find!

Fascinating, even eerie parallels between Churchill and Reagan: well, everyone will have his own favorites. Here are mine.

First, public speaking. They both wrote their own speeches and slaved over them. Churchill wrote on 4" x 8" paper, Reagan on 4" x 6" cards. They both practiced their speeches almost to the point of memorization, with the same result: they sounded spontaneous and convincing to their audiences. They both made speeches which changed men's minds. Carter, Johnson, and Nixon were incapable of such a thing.

Second, their marriages. Churchill's first marriage, Reagan's second -- both were Total Love Relationships, with absolute loyalty on both sides, the kind of love Walt Disney teaches us to dream about.

There are many other fascinating parallels (and non-parallels) between these two great leaders, but I'll leave them for you to discover as you read this VERY stimulating book!

I have not read this but I'm tired of theses instead of reviews. I think many potential buyers would prefer a "reviewer" such as Ms. Burke justify her unusual rating of 3.5 stars, rather then give us paragraphs of her own impressions of Churchill before an actual review of 2 positive sentences. (Please note: My stars are based strictly on a 10 minute browsing and that someone finally did a work comparing the first and last of the West's Cold War leaders -- what should have long been an obvious and great subject.)

A very readable but short book, which is one of the reasons why it cannot credibly deal with "The Making of Extraordinary Leaders."

Hayward is obviously an expert on both parties and as the title implies, has no doubt about their greatness. The reader is assumed to accept this judgement uncritically. There probably would not be much debate about Churchill in this context while Reagan's greatness is something that will be debated for a long time yet.

The author highlights parallels in their careers. Similarities are noted in their speech development - both prepared diligently, both nearly died of serious illness, each had an impish sense of humor, each moved from liberal to conservative philosophy.

Hayward has an easy writing style and presents a number of good anecdotes about both men, including one extremely humorous one featuring Churchill and political foe Clement Atlee.

If you want to read serious biography of either men, look elsewhere including, possibly, other books on these parties by author Hayward. But if you want a light (not in a deprecatory sense), enjoyable commentary on two fascinating politicians, this book fits the bill.

In between writing what will be a multi-book series Steven Hayward took a break and dashed of this delightful little book. At first it may seem that Reagan and Churchill had nothing in common but Hayward shows that this idea is wrong. Amazingly, Reagan and Churchill had remarkably parralel lives. Churchill was born in a palace but his childhood wasn't a fairy tale. His relationship with his adored father was a painful one that ended abruptly in what many whispered was a shameful death.

Reagan was born in modest circumstances and his relationship with his adored father was also painful due to his father's drunkeness. This relationship also ended abruptly by a death that was probably brought on by alcoholism.

Both men were devoted to their mothers and both men didn't bloom until they got away from home. Both men botched their early romances but ended up with devoted wives who they were intensely attached too. Both men seemed to be mystified and somewhat distant by their offspring. Both men were seriously underestimated by enemies and their own party colleagues. Both men despite living such hugely public lives were ciphers in private.

This book isn't trying to be an exhaustive treatise. It's a quick compare/contrast and is both amusing and eye opening.

Steven F. Hayward believes, against the grain of contemporary intellectualism, that there are great men. In "Greatness" he begins with the premise that both Churchill and Reagan ar4 great men. Some political partisans will disagree with that premise from the outset. This book is not for them.

For those who do believe that great men can exist and can change the course of history, Hayward's book is a fascinating study.

The first five chapters draw paralells between Reagan and Churchill's early years. The final four chapters make the case that there is no alternative but to conider Reagan an extraordinary, truly great leader.

Hayward never raises his voice. Rather he cites the respective accomplishments of Churchill and Reagan in the context of their times. He demolishes the myths that Reagan was "simple-minded" or the pawn of powers behind the throne. He really does an excellent job of establishing that Reagan, enigmatic as a man, was powerfully effective as a leader.

You don't have to be a hero worshipper or a partisan to appreciate Hayward's analysis: just someone who accepts the fact that a few individuals throughout history have risen to greatness. Churchill was definitely one - and so was Reagan.

Jerry

In talking to members of the political left about Reagan you had best not mention anything good at all, and the word 'Greatness' is likely to get them frothing at the mouth. I think that the history books will tell a somewhat different story, and this is one of the first that I've read.

Presidents who enter the White House with a clearly defined and thought goal can often get that goal done. Clinton and Kennedy, to name two, came in with plans to do a lot of things. I well remember Clinton's speech where he held up a plastic card saying that this would be all that an American needed for health care. But his next speech was on a different subject, and the one after that yet another.

Reagan came into office with the goal of solving the cold war. He asked for and received substantial increases in military spending, the price of getting this through congress was an incredible amount of pork barrel spending and increased social spending. Reagan said, 'OK, give me the military spending and you can have that.' By the end, Reagan had the military he needed to handle the Soviet Union and Congress had spent themselves silly.

Reagan's 'Star Wars' initiative was brilliant. He proposed a defensive shield that would end the world's reliance on ICBM's. He even invited the Soviets to join in a world wide program. The Soviets couldn't afford to either ignore or compete with 'Star Wars,' and the Cold War was over.

I review this book this way because most Americans hold Churchill in high esteem, perhaps even higher than do the British themselves. And this book compares the two leaders. Perhaps you'll agree, perhaps not, but this is the way historians seem to be regarding Reagan. I think Mr. Hayward made a very good comparison and in a book that's a delight to read.

I've been saying for many years now that the only two men of the Twentieth Century who qualify as "eternal heroes" are Ronald Reagan and Sir Winston Churchill. Imagine my glee upon discovering that Steven Hayward has taken the time to compare these two epic figures in his new book, Greatness. What is offered here is a lengthy essay considering just how similar these seemingly dissimilar leaders were. Via the examination of their overlapping attributes, the author is able to illustrate a recipe for what prodigiousness in man is.

On the surface, the juxtaposition of Reagan and Churchill does not seem apt, yet the narrator undertakes substantial effort to illustrate just how much they had in common. When we think of Churchill, we immediately think of his monstrous wit and intellect, but, in reality, we should also think the same about the 40th President of the United States. Certainly, he was not a scholar, but Reagan wrote thousands and thousands of pages for radio addresses and columns which kept his name alive during the wilderness years of the late and middle seventies. Reagan's wit and humor was every bit the equal to Churchill's. Both men were mavericks who never allowed their political parties to predetermine their views or actions. These were conservatives occasionally distrusted by their fellow conservatives, but, regardless, they managed to outshine all of their peers.

Greatness, albeit it short, manages to convey the spirit of two titans who will be referenced well into the next millennium. It reads very quickly, but what will be best remembered are the quotations detailed within. The words of Reagan and the words of Churchill flower over every page, and, by letting his subjects speak, Hayward has fulfilled his mission. By vanquishing Nazism and communism, the two vanquished the paramount evils of history. Their backgrounds could not have differed more, yet the results could not have been more grand for the people they led and saved. I'd say God Bless Churchill and Reagan, but we know that He already has.

I am a Democrat who voted against Reagan in 1980, but for him in 1984. I'm still a Democrat but I've never seen a leader like him in my lifetime. The comparisons to Churchill are apt. I place FDR in the same light as a leader, even though he and Reagan had very different philosophies as to the role of the government as nanny. As I see it now, Churchill and FDR won WWII. Reagan, with help from the Pope and others, won WWIII - the Cold War. I know that many in my party cannot accept that the GOP holds claim to a man of greatness, but it cannot be denied.

This is a great examination of two superb leaders. Hayward has the ability to combine scholarly depth with a light wit that makes for great reading. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in understand what makes a great leader.