Defender of the Realm

Product Information

Churchill is here a great man. But he is wrong fully half the time, whether by the philosophy of the reader or the actual verdict of events as told by our narrator. He is painted both prescient and naive. It must have been exhausting to have dined with him. In Episode One: Kombat Begins Again, the Cybernetic Units (also known as 'Cybers', that was first coined by Nightwolf, and 'Ninja Gizmos' by Sonya Blade) led by Sektor and Cyrax are actually Robots/Robotic as when they are destroyed, there are broken wires that fizzle electricity instead of Bones, Organs, and Blood, since the TV Show was Kid-Friendly, however, the Cybernetic Units do Grunt and Moan when they get destroyed, as well as shout a battle cry and speak words when charging in mass numbers (in one scene, after Kitana and Liu Kang came face to face with each other, and Kitana said "Great Form Liu Kang.".), which shows that the Cybernetic Units have Voice Boxes. The show focuses on a group of warriors assembled by Raiden (spelled Rayden in the series) to defend Earthrealm from invaders who entered through portals from various other dimensions. The assembled warriors included Liu Kang, Kurtis Stryker, Sonya Blade, Jax, Kitana, and Sub-Zero, with Nightwolf functioning mostly as tech support but still entering the fray on various occasions. The warriors operated out of a hidden base from where Nightwolf and Rayden monitored portal openings; the warriors would fly dragon-shaped jets to deal with disturbances. Shao Kahn was something of an archvillain throughout the series despite appearing in only four of the series' thirteen episodes, being responsible for allowing other realms to invade Earthrealm. The character development is splendid. Alfie is so uncertain of himself but when he comes into his own it gives you such a victorious feeling. Alfie is the real star of this book, of course there are other characters, but you really root for him the most and he pulls through, to say the least.

Obviously much of Manchester's oeuvre is focused on WWII, but he writes primarily about people, rather than events, and his genius is getting into the skins of the people he writes about and bringing to the reader the details that make the people real and the events understandable in human terms. In the first Churchill volume his treatment of Churchill's childhood was extensive with its focus on his playing with wooden soldiers and striving for the attention of his parents (which he rarely got) as well as the love and care he got from his nanny who gave him what the parents did not. Childhood takes up a good portion of that book. No other biographer that I've read does more than narrate the bare facts of Churchill's childhood. But obviously childhood is critical to understanding the man who was literally written off by his parents as dumb and unpromising. I read the first two volumes years ago and was awaiting the third, but as Manchester got older and older I was afraid he would never finish it. Evidently he was afraid too and finally enlisted journalist Paul Reid to finish it. Manchester had done most of the research. The book finally came out last fall. This is a magnificent conclusion to the life of Winston Churchill. It covers the period from May 1940 to when he died in January of 1965. It is the last volume of William Manchester’s trilogy on the life of this really oversized personality. This book just shines with so many stirring passages of the events of the era – Dunkirk, the air battles that saved England, El Alamein... His interaction and conflicts with those surrounding him, like Alan Brooke (Chief of the Imperial General Staff) and Harriman (America’s Lend-Lease representative), are well rendered. But to this final volume. In 1940, Churchill became the war leader. [Read Lukacs' June 1940 for a detailed account of how that happened.] Churchill had served in WWI (and in The Boer War), in the field but also at the Admiralty, but he was best known for the disastrous events at Gallipoli which he championed but was not really responsible for the execution of. After the war and throughout the 30ies, he was seen as a warmonger, especially as the rise of Hitler caused him to champion the need for Britain to rearm. He continue to serve in Parliament (to which he was first elected during the reign of Victoria. In June of 1940, he was already 65 years old. Once the enormous economic might of the U.S. was into the battle there was no longer any question about victory, it was just a matter of time.The animated show does not depict any Fatalities due to being aimed at a younger audience, but there are still a few deaths, albeit bloodless. Sub-Zero kills a Kahn Guard and a Tarkatan (in two different episodes) by freezing them and then breaking their ice-covered bodies. Another death was Jax lifting a Guard up by his head and then (offscreen) smashing him into pieces on the ground, after which he says "Rest in Peace. Or should I say, Pieces!" There are lots of good point of this books, for starter, this book is using historical places in the UK and the author slipping some tidbits of information which in turn, spurred me to search for more of it at the Internet ( lol ) To read a well written biography, and memoirs for that fact, can be an exceptional experience. The Last Lion 3: Winston Spencer Churchill, Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965 is a superb example. I loved all three parts of Winston Churchill's life story. Despite the death of William Manchester, Paul Reid did a superb job of concluding it. It was not the same, and we couldn't expected it to be just from the fact they are two different individuals, but was exceptionally done.

The only two individuals he could not dominate were Roosevelt and Stalin. Roosevelt, because he desperately required American military might to defeat the Nazis. Stalin, because after 1941 the Soviet Union was the main military opponent of Hitler’s Germany. Both Roosevelt and Churchill were duped and felt they could negotiate with Stalin. Stalin’s occupation of Eastern Europe showed how mislead they were. On his attitude on his buddy Lord Beaverbrook, whom he tapped to get aircraft production up by hook or by crook:This third and final volume in the Churchill biography covers the war and the period in which Churchill earned his place as the 2nd greatest man in the history of the Earth, 2nd only to Abraham Lincoln. He was always late for trains…”Winston is a sporting man,” Clementine once told his bodyguard. “He likes to give the train a chance to get away.” Churchill did not thrust and parry in such duels; he knew only how to thrust. Only later did it become clear that those who vehemently disagreed with him, and stated their case clearly, were those who won his respect. This is the best book I read this year. And it was a good year. It covers a topic (The Second World War) I know fairly well. Reid tells the story with confidence. This is not an historiography. There's no waffling based on competing scholarly opinions. This is what happened, he seems to say. I like that approach, and not just because I happened to agree with his telling.