This could have been a very interesting book; however, in order to truly examine how Churchill's faith and worldview made him a great leader, Mansfield would have risked disproving his primary "black and white" thesis: Winston Churchill was a great leader because he was a Christian... or at least "Christian" as defined by Mansfield's largely conservative, evangelical American audience. However, much of this audience would likely have major issues with Churchill's Freemasonry and later Druidic involvement, or in Churchill's belief in and reliance upon oratory-which included evoking British mythology-to rally the undermanned and underarmed British and hold the Germans at bay until more substantive military assistance arrived. In some Christian circles, particularly those up in arms over the Harry Potter books that draw upon much of the same British mythology Churchill did, this might be considered borderline sorcery. As the Nobel committee noted when awarding him the 1953 prize for literature (not peace), "His every word is half a deed."

Going to the other untenable extreme as conspiracy theorists across the `Net have done, claiming that Churchill's involvement with the Freemasons (like FDR's) and Druids proves that he is just as Satanic as Hitler, is certainly not an academic nor intellectually honest alternative; however, glossing over and outright avoiding relevant facts and sketching Churchill as a two-dimensional "Christian" hero any good card-holding Christian Reconstructionist could proudly hold up as a Christian leadership paradigm does nothing more than cast this complex man (who apparently had a more complex, idiosyncratic, and potentially problematic faith and worldview than Mansfield lets on) as a modern-day King Arthur. However, given Churchill's love of and belief in the power of myth, particularly English myth, perhaps Mansfield's speaking the Myth of Churchill into existence is perfectly appropriate in Churchillian terms. If this were truly Mansfield's motive, the book might have been more accurately titled, The Greatness and Power of the Churchillian Myth. [...]
Structurally, Mansfield's brief case-study examination of Churchill as leader bears a passing similarity to how Howard Gardner examined the various internal/cognitive and external influences that create and shape leaders in Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership (even though I personally thought Gardner did a better job of applying Mihalyi Cszikszentmihalyi's theories in an earlier book, Creating Minds). Based on a passing reference to Gardner's multiple intelligence theories in one of his other books, The Faith of George W. Bush, I wonder if Mansfield's treatment of Churchill isn't at least somewhat inspired by Gardner's work. However, reading this glossed-over, thesis-driven "study" just made me wish that Gardner had conducted this case study of Churchill in the first place.

This could have been a very interesting book; however, in order to truly examine how Churchill's faith and worldview made him a great leader, Mansfield would have risked disproving his primary "black and white" thesis: Winston Churchill was a great leader because he was a Christian... or at least "Christian" as defined by Mansfield's largely conservative, evangelical American audience. However, much of this audience would likely have major issues with Churchill's Freemasonry and later Druidic involvement, or in Churchill's belief in and reliance upon oratory-which included evoking British mythology-to rally the undermanned and underarmed British and hold the Germans at bay until more substantive military assistance arrived. In some Christian circles, particularly those up in arms over the Harry Potter books that draw upon much of the same British mythology Churchill did, this might be considered borderline sorcery. As the Nobel committee noted when awarding him the 1953 prize for literature (not peace), "His every word is half a deed."

Going to the other untenable extreme as conspiracy theorists across the `Net have done, claiming that Churchill's involvement with the Freemasons (like FDR's) and Druids proves that he is just as Satanic as Hitler, is certainly not an academic nor intellectually honest alternative; however, glossing over and outright avoiding relevant facts and sketching Churchill as a two-dimensional "Christian" hero any good card-holding Christian Reconstructionist could proudly hold up as a Christian leadership paradigm does nothing more than cast this complex man (who apparently had a more complex, idiosyncratic, and potentially problematic faith and worldview than Mansfield lets on) as a modern-day King Arthur. However, given Churchill's love of and belief in the power of myth, particularly English myth, perhaps Mansfield's speaking the Myth of Churchill into existence is perfectly appropriate in Churchillian terms. If this were truly Mansfield's motive, the book might have been more accurately titled, The Greatness and Power of the Churchillian Myth. [...]
Structurally, Mansfield's brief case-study examination of Churchill as leader bears a passing similarity to how Howard Gardner examined the various internal/cognitive and external influences that create and shape leaders in Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership (even though I personally thought Gardner did a better job of applying Mihalyi Cszikszentmihalyi's theories in an earlier book, Creating Minds). Based on a passing reference to Gardner's multiple intelligence theories in one of his other books, The Faith of George W. Bush, I wonder if Mansfield's treatment of Churchill isn't at least somewhat inspired by Gardner's work. However, reading this glossed-over, thesis-driven "study" just made me wish that Gardner had conducted this case study of Churchill in the first place.