Winston Churchill was done no favor when he was named Prime Minister in May of1940 just hours before Adolph Hitler's invasion of Belgium, Holland and France. As the world watched in horror, Hitler's army marched through those countries with surprising ease and pushed Britain's forces to the coast at Dunkirk where they seemed to be trapped like fleeing rats. Never Surrender tells the story of what turned out to be one of the most important three weeks of the twentieth century. It was during those dark days that Churchill almost single-handedly managed to keep his government from suing for peace with Hitler even when it appeared that his country would soon have no army or air force left with which to fight.

Michael Dobbs portrays a Winston Churchill who at times seems to succeed in spite of himself. Despite his bouts of depression, his drinking habits and the fact that most of his colleagues were convinced that he was already a failure, Churchill gave his countrymen the will to defy Hitler when it seemed near impossible that their resistance could ever succeed. The Winston Churchill of Never Surrender is a man filled with self-doubt, a man who still craves the approval of his long dead father, and a man who is willing to do whatever is necessary to save his beloved country. If he has to lie to his fellow ministers and staff, he will do it. If he has to ask thousands of men to sacrifice their lives in a hopeless battle to win time for others to escape Hitler's trap, he will do that. He understands, even if only a few others do, that negotiating with Adolph Hitler is the same as surrender, and he will never surrender.

But there is more to Never Surrender than Winston Churchill. Dobbs uses side stories and characters to further detail what was happening at all levels of British society during those crucial days. There are Don Chichester, a young conscientious objector and orderly with the British army in France and his Anglican vicar father who considers him to be a coward for not taking up arms against the enemy. There is Ruth Mueller, a German refugee and Hitler biographer, who has fled to England after being sickened by what has become of her own country, and who becomes an unofficial adviser to Churchill about what makes Adolph Hitler tick. There is even Joseph Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Britain, who watches smugly, and almost hopefully, as Churchill's options become fewer and fewer, a man willing to mislead President Roosevelt despite the consequences.

Never Surrender is a suspenseful account of what one man achieved despite obstacles that would have stopped most men in their tracks. Faced with obstinate military leaders who would not follow orders, defeatist ministers who were ready to quit the fight, and self-doubts of his own, Churchill was still able to defy Hitler and to rescue more than three hundred thousand men from the beaches of Dunkirk, men who would live to fight another day. The world was lucky that Winston Churchill came along when he did. Michael Dobbs has done a remarkable job in explaining just how lucky.

I am not sure what bothers me most about this book- the tedious dialogue, the major focus of the story on the point of view of a pacifist objector, or the liberties taken with Churchill and his innermost thoughts. There is so much great non-fiction out there on Churchill that this book to me was a total waste of time. Read the Manchester series or Gilbert's abridged official biography and get the scope of the man and his times- this is much better than page after page of the suspended belief that is this book.

There is a built in audience for all things Churchill and this author apparently has the credibility to move books- this does not mean that Churchill is accurately portrayed or that the story is engrossing or plausible. Churchill's real life suffices and sustains any treatment and with the breadth of choices out there it is unfortunate that any student of Churchill would fall for this book.

I picked this up at a sale rack at Borders- I fell for the cover and the subject matter. If you have read anything at all of substance about Churchill then I would suggest avoiding this one.

I picked this book up on the sale table at a bookstore (sorry Amazon) and found it so compelling that I had to order the others in this series by Michael Dobbs (from Amazon this time). I day-dreamed through most of my history classes but have found that some of the current "historical fiction" and the well written non-fiction history books have drawn me into a sincere desire to study what I so foolishly skipped in my girlhood. I am also enjoying the reviews from all of you who have always valued our past.

Michael Dobbs yet again brings to life an icon of the 20th Century. We learn a great deal about the man, Churchill, both his passions as well as his demons. Dobbs' portrayal of the machinations of Kennedy/Halifax bring texture to a relatively brief but critical period following Churchill's ascendancy as PM and the heroic days of Dunkirk. The sidebar drama of the Chichesters adds additional color and brings out in clear fashion how monumental events engineered by national leaders impact the daily lives and struggles of an average family. Churchill, himself, comes across in all his complexity and imperfections as a man possessed with a determination and fundemental vision ironically more in tune with that of the average Englishman than that of the gentry class into which he was born. His ability to rally the British people over the heads of his political opponents is clearly set forth by Dobbs, who more than most understands the dangers of moral relativism taking hold of the debate in times of crisis.

Michael Dobbs does a superb job of breathing life into Churchill. Although we all know the outcome of the war, witnessing the events through Dobbs' creative hand makes them all the more real. Although firmly grounded in fact, Dobb's fiction takes readers into Churchill's soul in a most believeable - and suspenseful - way. The huge and complex character of Churchill is exposed warts and all but always magnificently, and the well-known events it deals with like the evacuation of the British Army from Dunkirk get brought vividly to life. I particularly enjoyed the contrast between the high politics centered in London and the agonies of war witnessed from the mud through the character of Donald Chichester, the ambulance auxiliary in France - two totally contrasting heroes of the book, Churchill the aging warrior, and Donald the young conscientious objector. And could Joe Kennedy, the US ambassador to Britain at that time, have been such a villain? Dobbs lays him bare. I know it's a novel, but for me it brought home the truth of warfare much more effectively than many history books I've read. I found the characters gripping, they got me thinking, and I was left wondering which bits were fact and what was the fiction - and wanting to find out more. A great read.
It's about time that Dobbs is getting better US exposure. We want more!

With his incredible historical novel, Never Surrender: A Novel of Winston Churchill, Michael Dobbs plunges readers into the mind, thoughts, feelings, and actions of Winston Churchill when he was appointed Prime Minister of England in the early days of World War II. As Dobbs wisely remarks in his Acknowledgments, "Even those histories that are constructed as tightly as possible around `the facts' still leave room for the sort of speculation about motives and emotions that are such an important component in trying to understand not only what happened, but why something happened."

Dobb's narration begins when we learn about the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) that was sent over to France preparing for and expecting a war just like World War I, a steady, solid, stay-where-you-were war. One that was fought behind tank trenches and pillboxes they had spent months building in France.
Neville Chamberlain has just resigned and three men gather together to discuss the appointment of Winston Churchill as the new Prime Minister.
The three were Henry Channon, known as Mr. Chips, who was the parliamentary aide, Jack Colville, private secretary to Neville Chamberlain, and "Rab" Butler, the second-most senior Minister in the Foreign Office, who was considered a future leader.

For Colville and the others, although Churchill had a vast experience of war, there was nothing to be gained either from war or from Churchill. And Colville further reminds his colleagues, "The fate of our country has been placed in the hands of the greatest political adventurer of modern times. A half-breed American whose entire life has been littered with failures for which other people paid." All agreed that they should let Winston have his day dabbling at war and when he fails, as he always has, the country will come to these three to save it. And who will replace him, perhaps Chamberlain and if not him, Halifax.

While this is transpiring, Churchill meets with his long time friend and loyal supporter, Brendan Bracken, Minister of Information. As he ponders over the circumstances he now finds himself in, he mentions to Bracken that it was not success that brought him here, only the monumental failures of others. When questioned as to whom will form the War Cabinet, Churchill affirms that it will consist of some surprises, notably Messrs. Atlee and Greenwood of the Labour Party, Lord Halifax and Neville Chamberlain. To this, Bracken retorts, "you can't be serious- they're the four most bloody-minded men in the country. Two socialists with whom you've got nothing in common, the former Prime Minister, who's devoted most of his limited talents to keep you at the outer edge of the universe, and...Edward Halifax, Churchill's chief rival for the post." However, Churchill, who certainly was no fool and a very shrewd politician, defends his choices by stating that if he is to build a national government he must include such men even though he may not be able to trust their loyalty-prophetic statements that eventually prove him right.

Dobbs vividly and richly reconstructs Churchill as he blends fact with fiction during these early tumultuous days in office with no one to guide him through his despair and his battle against appeasement towards Hitler and his henchmen. And although Churchill may have been skillful with brave and magnificent words that stirred the hearts of his countrymen, he was left with nothing but his own depressive thoughts. It was these thoughts that would often carry him to the haunting portrait of his father Lord Randolph that hung in a corner of his office and to whom Churchill would often turn to secure approval. It should be pointed out that Dobbs mentions in the beginning of his novel that one of the most inspiring articles written by Churchill and one that was only discovered after his death, was entitled "The Dream." Apparently, it concerns a conversation with his father's ghost, which he conducted while he was painting an oil painting of his father that had been damaged during the war.

Entwined with Churchill's story is the voice of a conscientious objector who was rejected by his father as being a coward even though he bravely participated in the war as a medic and experienced some horrific scenes. Dobbs also inserts the fictional character of Ruth Mueller who was a German refugee who sought safety in Britain in 1938 and to whom Churchill turns to for advice concerning Hitler's psyche.
Not to be left out is the frosty relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt as well and the treachery of Joseph Patrick "Joe" Kennedy, Sr. father of the future President of the USA, who was briefly the US Ambassador to England at the start of World War II and whose career abruptly came to an end during the height of the Battle of Britain in 1940 with the publishing of his disastrous remarks that "Democracy is finished."

Michael Dobbs' credentials and research skills are impeccable. He has written fifteen novels and has been an academic, a broadcaster, a senior corporate executive, and an adviser to Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

Norm Goldman, Editor Bookpleasures

... when they follow a truly great first book of a series. In this case, I for one might have rated Never Surrender higher, had it not been the sequel to such a wonderful book as Winston's War. Compared to its predecessor Never Surrender seems average in spite of being well written, probably because the cast of characters surrounding Churchill seems lacklustre compared to the witty and merciless portraits of for instance Guy Burgess, Brendan Bracken and Neville Chamberlain in Winston's War.
On a general level, Never Surrender deserves praise for managing to keep the reader in suspense until the very end in spite of dealing with historical events with a well known outcome. I understand there is to be another sequel, which will hopefully deal less with Churchill's emotional state and more with the political machinations of Whitehall during the war.