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Churchill's Wizards: The British Genius for Deception, 1914-1945 | 
| Author: Nicholas Rankin
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Category: Book
List Price: £25.00
Buy New: £16.25
You Save: £8.75 (35%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 344
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 5.8 x 1.9
ISBN: 0571221955
EAN: 9780571221950
ASIN: 0571221955
Publication Date: October 2, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
Wizardry! October 14, 2008
33 out of 36 found this review helpful
I must start by saying that 'Churchill's Wizards' is first and foremost a great read. Nicholas Rankin has managed to turn what at first sight may seem like a forbiddingly esoteric subject into a thoroughly accessible and engaging narrative full of intrigue and incident. This is in no small part down to some very accomplished writing, which throughout the book is always adding splashes of colour to the blacks and whites of historical fact. The rather wonderful picture of Gavrilo Princip at the start of the book, `a tubercular and weedy-looking youth,' consoling himself with a sandwich in Moritz Schiller's cafe after a failed attempt on the life of the Archduke and just before he was to be given a second chance by way of the infamous `wrong turn', is a case in point I think.
`Wizards' story of the secret wars of deception that were fought beneath the surface of the two World Wars is as surprising as it is fascinating. The tales of ingenuity, audacity and at times damn right eccentricity that characterised the British deceptions and ruses are each interesting in their own right and are invariably drawn with much humour and heart. But it is how these portraits fit into the bigger picture that will have the reader gripped; as `Wizards' reworks the annals of war from the perspective of deception. Giving us fresh takes on familiar campaigns and events like `Gallipoli' and `D-day' that have been all but exhausted by books and films.
I have to say that Mr Rankin does this with all the subtlety and skill of one of his 'camofluers': seamlessly integrating vast tracts of unfamiliar territory into the well-trodden historical landscapes of the first and second World Wars. But rather than hollowed-out trees and dummy tanks what one can expect to find when they examine this book is something of real substance. That is, a superbly crafted piece of scholarship that is hugely informative and very, very readable.
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