Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England

A riveting history of the daring politicians who challenged the disastrous policies of the British government on the eve of World War II On May 7, 1940, the House of Commons began perhaps the most crucial debate in British parliamentary history. On its outcome hung the future of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's government and also of Britain--indeed, perhaps, the world. Troublesome Young Men is Lynne Olson's fascinating account of how a small group of rebellious Tory MPs defied the Chamberlain government's defeatist policies that aimed to appease Europe's tyrants and eventually forced the prime minister's resignation. Some historians dismiss the "phony war" that preceded this turning point--from September 1939, when Britain and France declared war on Germany, to May 1940, when Winston Churchill became prime minister--as a time of waiting and inaction, but Olson makes no such mistake, and describes in dramatic detail the public unrest that spread through Britain then, as people realized how poorly prepared the nation was to confront Hitler, how their basic civil liberties were being jeopardized, and also that there were intrepid politicians willing to risk political suicide to spearhead the opposition to Chamberlain--Harold Macmillan, Robert Boothby, Leo Amery, Ronald Cartland, and Lord Robert Cranborne among them. The political and personal dramas that played out in Parliament and in the nation as Britain faced the threat of fascism virtually on its own are extraordinary--and, in Olson's hands, downright inspiring.

History

Olson, Lynne

Europe

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

A riveting history of the daring politicians who challenged the disastrous policies of the British government on the eve of World War II
On May 7, 1940, the House of Commons began perhaps the most crucial debate in British parliamentary history. On its outcome hung the future of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's government and also of Britain―indeed, perhaps, the world. Troublesome Young Men is Lynne Olson's fascinating account of how a small group of rebellious Tory MPs defied the Chamberlain government's defeatist policies that aimed to appease Europe's tyrants and eventually forced the prime minister's resignation.
Some historians dismiss the "phony war" that preceded this turning point―from September 1939, when Britain and France declared war on Germany, to May 1940, when Winston Churchill became prime minister―as a time of waiting and inaction, but Olson makes no such mistake, and describes in dramatic detail the public unrest that spread through Britain then, as people realized how poorly prepared the nation was to confront Hitler, how their basic civil liberties were being jeopardized, and also that there were intrepid politicians willing to risk political suicide to spearhead the opposition to Chamberlain―Harold Macmillan, Robert Boothby, Leo Amery, Ronald Cartland, and Lord Robert Cranborne among them. The political and personal dramas that played out in Parliament and in the nation as Britain faced the threat of fascism virtually on its own are extraordinary―and, in Olson's hands, downright inspiring.

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

A Question of Honor is the gripping, little-known story of the refugee Polish pilots who joined the RAF and played an essential role in saving Britain from the Nazis, only to be betrayed by the Allies after the war. After Poland fell to the Nazis, thousands of Polish pilots, soldiers, and sailors escaped to England. Devoted to liberating their homeland, some would form the RAF’s 303 squadron, known as the Kosciuszko Squadron, after the elite unit in which many had flown back home. Their thrilling exploits and fearless flying made them celebrities in Britain, where they were “adopted” by socialites and seduced by countless women, even as they yearned for news from home. During the Battle of Britain, they downed more German aircraft than any other squadron, but in a stunning twist at the war’s end, the Allies rewarded their valor by abandoning Poland to Joseph Stalin. This moving, fascinating book uncovers a crucial forgotten chapter in World War II–and Polish–history.

A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II

Cloud, Stanley

Vintage

Acclaimed historian Lynne Olson’s collective biography explores one of the most important turning points in 20th-century history – the months leading up to Winston Churchill’s accession to Prime Minister and the decisive turning of the tide in Britain against the appeasement of Hitler. They attended the same schools, went to the same country houses, married each other’s sisters. They were part of the small, clubby network that dominated English society. And now they were doing the unthinkable: trying to topple the man who led their own political party, prime minister Neville Chamberlain, from power. It was early 1940, several months after Britain had declared war on Germany–and then had made clear it had little interest in fighting. Poland had been crushed, and Chamberlain, despite the treaties and the promises to Poland, had done nothing to save it. In Germany, military buildup continued unabated, as Hitler fine-tuned his plans for an assault on Western Europe. In Britain there was doubt, suspicion, and despair. When war was declared, the country had braced itself: millions had been evacuated to the countryside; a blackout had been imposed–and for what? What was the justification? A small group of dissidents within the Conservative Party drew together to fight Chamberlain and his policy of appeasing Hitler. They included the bookish Harold Macmillan, an unlikely rebel; Roland Cartland, most outspoken of the dissidents; and Anthony Eden, the Golden Boy of interwar politics and Chamberlain’s foreign secretary. The climax of months of conspiracy would come in May 1940, when the House of Commons gathered to debate Britain’s defeat by Germany in Norway. As the rebels worked feverishly to line up last-minute support, the dissidents feared that their odds of success were slim. Yet within days of their challenging Chamberlain over the conduct of the war in Norway, he was gone and Churchill was prime minister. Troublesome Young Men is the story of how that came to be–and of the men who made it happen.

Bond Street Books

Acclaimed historian Lynne Olson’s collective biography explores one of the most important turning points in 20th-century history – the months leading up to Winston Churchill’s accession to Prime Minister and the decisive turning of the tide in Britain against the appeasement of Hitler. They attended the same schools, went to the same country houses, married each other’s sisters. They were part of the small, clubby network that dominated English society. And now they were doing the unthinkable: trying to topple the man who led their own political party, prime minister Neville Chamberlain, from power. It was early 1940, several months after Britain had declared war on Germany–and then had made clear it had little interest in fighting. Poland had been crushed, and Chamberlain, despite the treaties and the promises to Poland, had done nothing to save it. In Germany, military buildup continued unabated, as Hitler fine-tuned his plans for an assault on Western Europe. In Britain there was doubt, suspicion, and despair. When war was declared, the country had braced itself: millions had been evacuated to the countryside; a blackout had been imposed–and for what? What was the justification? A small group of dissidents within the Conservative Party drew together to fight Chamberlain and his policy of appeasing Hitler. They included the bookish Harold Macmillan, an unlikely rebel; Roland Cartland, most outspoken of the dissidents; and Anthony Eden, the Golden Boy of interwar politics and Chamberlain’s foreign secretary. The climax of months of conspiracy would come in May 1940, when the House of Commons gathered to debate Britain’s defeat by Germany in Norway. As the rebels worked feverishly to line up last-minute support, the dissidents feared that their odds of success were slim. Yet within days of their challenging Chamberlain over the conduct of the war in Norway, he was gone and Churchill was prime minister. Troublesome Young Men is the story of how that came to be–and of the men who made it happen. From the Hardcover edition.

Anchor Canada

While justly acclaimed as the closest, most successful military partnership in history, the "special relationship" forged between the United States and Britain during World War II was anything but the inevitable alliance it appears to be in hindsight. As the countries of Western Europe fell one by one to Hitler, and Britain alone resisted him, aid from the U.S. was late, expensive, and reluctantly granted by an isolationist government that abhorred the idea of another world war. Citizens of London is the behind-the-scenes story of the slow, difficult growth of the Anglo-American wartime alliance, told from the perspective of three key Americans in London who played vital roles in creating it and making it work. In her close-focus, character-driven narrative, Lynne Olson, former White House journalist and LA Times Book Prize finalist for her last book, Troublesome Young Men, sets the three Americans - Averell Harriman, Edward R. Murrow, and John Gilbert Winant - at the heart of her dramatic story. Harriman was the rich, well-connected director of President Roosevelt's controversial Lend-Lease program in which the U.S., a still neutral country, "loaned" military equipment to the UK; Murrow, the handsome, innovative head of CBS News, was the first person to broadcast over live, on-location radio to the American public, and Winant, the least known but most crucial of the three, was the shy former New Hampshire governor who became the new U.S. ambassador to England after Joseph Kennedy quit the post and fled the country as bombs rained down around him. Citizens of London opens in 1941 at the bleakest period of the war, when Britain withstood nine months of nightly bomb attacks and food and supplies were running out as German ships and U-boats had the island nation surrounded. Churchill was demanding and imploring FDR to help, but the U.S. did its best to ignore England's desperate plight. It was the work of these three key men, Olson argues, that eventually changed American attitudes. So above all this is a human story, focusing on the individuals who shaped this important piece of history. Key to the book is the extremely close relationship between Winston Churchill and the three Americans, and indeed, so intimate were their ties that all three men had love affairs with women in Churchill's family. Set in the dangerous, vibrant world of wartorn London, Citizens of London is rich, highly readable, engrossing history, the story of three influential men and their immediate circle who shaped the world we live in.

Citizens of London: How Britain was Rescued in Its Darkest, Finest Hour

Military

While justly acclaimed as the closest, most successful military partnership in history, the "special relationship" forged between the United States and Britain during World War II was anything but the inevitable alliance it appears to be in hindsight. As the countries of Western Europe fell one by one to Hitler, and Britain alone resisted him, aid from the U.S. was late, expensive, and reluctantly granted by an isolationist government that abhorred the idea of another world war. Citizens of London is the behind-the-scenes story of the slow, difficult growth of the Anglo-American wartime alliance, told from the perspective of three key Americans in London who played vital roles in creating it and making it work. In her close-focus, character-driven narrative, Lynne Olson, former White House journalist and LA Times Book Prize finalist for her last book, Troublesome Young Men, sets the three Americans - Averell Harriman, Edward R. Murrow, and John Gilbert Winant - at the heart of her dramatic story. Harriman was the rich, well-connected director of President Roosevelt's controversial Lend-Lease program in which the U.S., a still neutral country, "loaned" military equipment to the UK; Murrow, the handsome, innovative head of CBS News, was the first person to broadcast over live, on-location radio to the American public, and Winant, the least known but most crucial of the three, was the shy former New Hampshire governor who became the new U.S. ambassador to England after Joseph Kennedy quit the post and fled the country as bombs rained down around him. Citizens of London opens in 1941 at the bleakest period of the war, when Britain withstood nine months of nightly bomb attacks and food and supplies were running out as German ships and U-boats had the island nation surrounded. Churchill was demanding and imploring FDR to help, but the U.S. did its best to ignore England's desperate plight. It was the work of these three key men, Olson argues, that eventually changed American attitudes. So above all this is a human story, focusing on the individuals who shaped this important piece of history. Key to the book is the extremely close relationship between Winston Churchill and the three Americans, and indeed, so intimate were their ties that all three men had love affairs with women in Churchill's family. Set in the dangerous, vibrant world of wartorn London, Citizens of London is rich, highly readable, engrossing history, the story of three influential men and their immediate circle who shaped the world we live in. From the Hardcover edition.

The Murrow Boys: Pioneers on the Front Lines of Broadcast Journalism

A close-up look at a talented group of foreign correspondents who transformed broadcast journalism--including Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevaried, William L. Shirer, Charles Collingwood, and Howard K. Smith--and witnessed the corporate pressures and sensationalism that mark modern news.

Professionals & Academics

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

Publishers Weekly described The Murrow Boys as "a lively, colloquial history of broadcast journalism that is so exciting one's impulse is to read it in a single sitting." It tells the swashbuckling tale of Edward R. Murrow and his legendary band of CBS radio journalists - Charles Collingwood, Howard K. Smith, William Shirer, Eric Sevareid, and others - as they "paint pictures in the air" from the World War II front. Brimming with personalities and anecdotal detail, it also serves up a sharp-eyed account of where the craft went wrong after the war, when vanity and commercialism increasingly intruded."This is history at its best," said Ted Anthony of AP News.

Humor & Entertainment

Television

Mariner Books

Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt's Ancient Temples from Destruction

The remarkable story of the intrepid French archaeologist who led the international effort to save ancient Egyptian temples from the floodwaters of the Aswan Dam, by the New York Times bestselling author of Madame Fourcade’s Secret War\n“A female version of the Indiana Jones story . . . [Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt] was a daredevil whose real-life antics put Hollywood fiction to shame.”—The Guardian\nIn the 1960s, the world’s attention was focused on a nail-biting race against time: the international campaign to save a dozen ancient Egyptian temples from drowning in the floodwaters of the gigantic new Aswan High Dam. But the coverage of this unprecedented rescue effort completely overlooked the daring French archaeologist who made it all happen. Without the intervention of Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, the temples—including the Temple of Dendur, now at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art—would currently be at the bottom of a vast reservoir. It was an unimaginably complex project that required the fragile sandstone temples to be dismantled and rebuilt on higher ground.\nWillful and determined, Desroches-Noblecourt refused to be cowed by anyone or anything. As a member of the French Resistance in World War II she survived imprisonment by the Nazis; in her fight to save the temples she defied two of the most daunting leaders of the postwar world, Egypt’s President Abdel Nasser and France’s President Charles de Gaulle. As she told one reporter, “You don’t get anywhere without a fight, you know.”\nDesroches-Noblecourt also received help from a surprising source. Jacqueline Kennedy, America’s new First Lady, persuaded her husband to help fund the rescue effort. After a century and a half of Western plunder of Egypt’s ancient monuments, Desroches-Noblecourt helped instead to preserve a crucial part of that cultural heritage.

Community & Culture

Random House]

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Olson, Lynne. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Olson, Lynne

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Olson, Lynne. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England

Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England

A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II

Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England

Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England

Citizens of London: How Britain was Rescued in Its Darkest, Finest Hour

Citizens of London: How Britain was Rescued in Its Darkest, Finest Hour

The Murrow Boys: Pioneers on the Front Lines of Broadcast Journalism

The Murrow Boys: Pioneers on the Front Lines of Broadcast Journalism

Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt's Ancient Temples from Destruction