In his IEEE, the speech showed that Churchill fully understood what the West faced in a confrontation with Hitter's Germany: "It involved his conviction, his deepest one, that if the Western democracies were to give up fighting, if they were to seek an accommodation with Hitler, that it would be the end: the definite end not only of their independence, but of Western civilization, forever" (53). With such bleak rhetoric of required sacrifice and impending disaster, the speech set the tone for what Britain would face in the war.Lukas also asserts that buried within this speech were two important elements: Churchill leveled that the British people would prefer to know the worst and that they would rally around his appeal. Lacuna's claims regarding the importance of the speech are undercut somewhat by the fact that it was not broadcast by the BBC, nor was it widely read. He gets around this point by discussing some of Churchill other speeches Trot 940 Ana scrolling the effects of those speeches as "cumulative, not instant" (62).
Also, he cites the Bib's "Audience Research" to show that the British people tuned in to Churchill broadcasts in greater numbers as the summer of 1940 wore on, along with observations from a Ministry of Information study showing that during the same period the British people began to become aware of the character of the struggle at hand. Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat is less a conventional history book than a character sketch off brief moment in 1940 and of Churchill rhetoric at that time. This is in keeping with the books place in Basic Books' Basic Ideas series.This departure from convention allows Lukas to focus on interesting topics, such as writing a tribute to Churchill magnanimity, which Lukas sees as his foremost virtue. Lukas also does a good Job of explaining the three types f government competing in 1940: communism, fascism, and democracy.
At the time, the first two alternatives appeared more "modern. " By contrast, Churchill ideas, his devotion to Western civilization, his rhetoric, and even his style of dress were all old-fashioned, even by the standards of 1940.
