Kilzer, a prize winning journalist, has produced yet another revisionist 'history' examining Winston Churchill's pivotal role in the Second World War. His prose can be engaging, his suggestions controversial, his conclusions thought provoking, and his documentation dubious. He jumps back and forth among a variety of persons and topics at a frenetic pace and with a bevy of 'revelations.' His premise is overstated, if not flawed, by the need to rehabilitate Hitler's reputation which he believes "distorted" while Churchill has become "a god." (p. 78) Thus, he endeavors to convince his readers that Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess and Hitler were both profound Anglophiles who wanted to share power with the British Empire while eventually destroying the hated communistic Soviet Union. Unfortunately, so the story goes, Churchill's immense ego, militarism, and Germanophobia compelled him to play a dangerous political game which co-opted the British 'peace party,' lured Hess to entrapment in Britain, induced Hitler to a Russian Gotterdammerung, and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to decisive military intervention; all of which engendered mass genocide in Europe and the ultimate demise of the British Empire! It should immediately be apparent that this cause and effect Tour de Force ascribes far more power and pre-meditation to Churchill than is hardly possible for the embattled head of a tottering empire. Also, Kilzer's over-reliance on numerous works by vehement anti-Churchill 'historians' such as David Irving or the diaries of noted Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels and Walter Schnellenberg is certainly not credible. His numerous errors regarding military history and strategy do not inspire confidence, especially references such as the British assault at Verdun in 1916 (p. 139) when he obviously meant the Somme; his assignation of the sole blame for the Dardanelles Disaster in 1915 to Churchill, a very old red herring; or his continual remarks that the Royal Navy, still the world's foremost naval power, was powerless to resist a German invasion in 1940. Of special amusement is the great strategic weight he assigns to the Iraqi Revolt of 1941 which was, in actuality, little more than a sideshow. CHURCHILL'S DECEPTION is not the worst example of the revisionist excesses regarding the Second World War, Churchill's reputation, or the Holocaust which now abound in print, film, and the Internet. He is also not as vitriolic as Irving and some othes and he does raise important questions regarding reality and perception, then and now, although resolution remains as elusive as ever and subject to fantastic speculation which shows little sign of abating.

Kilzer, a prize winning journalist, has produced yet another revisionist 'history' examining Winston Churchill's pivotal role in the Second World War. His prose can be engaging, his suggestions controversial, his conclusions thought provoking, and his documentation dubious. He jumps back and forth among a variety of persons and topics at a frenetic pace and with a bevy of 'revelations.' His premise is overstated, if not flawed, by the need to rehabilitate Hitler's reputation which he believes "distorted" while Churchill has become "a god." (p. 78) Thus, he endeavors to convince his readers that Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess and Hitler were both profound Anglophiles who wanted to share power with the British Empire while eventually destroying the hated communistic Soviet Union. Unfortunately, so the story goes, Churchill's immense ego, militarism, and Germanophobia compelled him to play a dangerous political game which co-opted the British 'peace party,' lured Hess to entrapment in Britain, induced Hitler to a Russian Gotterdammerung, and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to decisive military intervention; all of which engendered mass genocide in Europe and the ultimate demise of the British Empire! It should immediately be apparent that this cause and effect Tour de Force ascribes far more power and pre-meditation to Churchill than is hardly possible for the embattled head of a tottering empire. Also, Kilzer's over-reliance on numerous works by vehement anti-Churchill 'historians' such as David Irving or the diaries of noted Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels and Walter Schnellenberg is certainly not credible. His numerous errors regarding military history and strategy do not inspire confidence, especially references such as the British assault at Verdun in 1916 (p. 139) when he obviously meant the Somme; his assignation of the sole blame for the Dardanelles Disaster in 1915 to Churchill, a very old red herring; or his continual remarks that the Royal Navy, still the world's foremost naval power, was powerless to resist a German invasion in 1940. Of special amusement is the great strategic weight he assigns to the Iraqi Revolt of 1941 which was, in actuality, little more than a sideshow. CHURCHILL'S DECEPTION is not the worst example of the revisionist excesses regarding the Second World War, Churchill's reputation, or the Holocaust which now abound in print, film, and the Internet. He is also not as vitriolic as Irving and some othes and he does raise important questions regarding reality and perception, then and now, although resolution remains as elusive as ever and subject to fantastic speculation which shows little sign of abating.