Reviews
"A wonderful story, splendidly, deftly and originally told." -- Hugh Thomas, author of The Spanish Civil War "A skillful, absorbing, often moving contribution to the popular understanding of one of the few episodes in history to live on untarnished and undiminished in the collective memory and to deserve the description 'heroic.'" -- Washington Post Book World The Battle of Britain was one of the great transformative events of modern history, and Michael Korda's stirring account of the campaign is an absolute masterpiece, written with power, intensity and tremendous fidelity to the historical record. It is a tour de force of storytelling and analysis,and a highly pleasurable read, as well, history in the grand style of the masters of the art. -- Donald L. Miller, author of Masters of the Air "An excellent book. The writing is most rewarding, and Korda's natural talent and experience as a storyteller have enabled him to bind all the disparate episodes into a gripping story. A formidable job, beautifully completed." -- Len Deighton, author of The Ipcress File Military historians face tough choices. Do they write about The Big Picture, with presidents and prime ministers making decisions with generals and admirals? Or do they write from the foxhole level, where The Big Picture extends only 300 meters to the front and flanks? . . . In looking back at World War II's Battle of Britain in With Wings Like Eagles, historian Michael Korda tells the tale from all of the angles cited above. Not only does he make it work, he also keeps it terse. . . . With Wings Like Eagles tells their story superbly. -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch "A natural pick for the WWII collection." -- Booklist "Books have been written about the Battle of Britain, but to me none is as interesting and informative as Michael Korda's new With Wings Like Eagles." -- Tampa Tribune "The book soars in those parts in which Korda describes how the British prepared for the war in the skies, or how the Germans failed time and again to deliver a knockout blow". -- New York Times Book Review "A worthy addition to the mounds of material on the battle that saved Britain and possibly much of the world." -- San Antonio Express-News "Regardless of whether you are one of the lucky few ever to have flown a Spitfire, or your parents not yet born in 1940, Michael Korda's reliving of all the exhilaration, heroism, fear, and epochal significance of the 'Battle of Britain' will enthrall you. He restores the name of its principal architect, 'Stuffy' Dowding, to its proper pinnacle, and even has unexpected, but just, praise for Neville Chamberlain. His mastery of aero-technics is phenomenal, and no one can make an exciting, and complex, tale more understandable; quite simply the best book I have read this year." -- Sir Alistair Horne, C.B.E., 'Michael Korda's Ike is a clear-eyed, grand-scale biography that does much more than tell the remarkable life-story of Dwight D. Eisenhower.Written with great vitality and a broad understanding of both military history and human nature, it is a powerful reminder of the almost unimaginable magnitude of World War II and that Eisenhower, in his crucial role in the struggle, proved, exactly when needed, to be one of the most important, genuinely laudable Americans ever.Korda's deft portrayals of Churchill, Roosevelt, George C. Marshall and Douglas MacArthur are superb.There are illuminating details and anecdotes aplenty.But it is Eisenhower as Supreme Commander and later as president, who provides a vivid lesson in leadership at just the moment when leadership is of such paramount importance to the nation and the world.' (David McCullough)
