SOURCE: A review of The Second World War: The Gathering Storm, in Journal of Modern History, Vol. 21, No. 4, December 1949, pp. 357-59.

In the following review, Hall finds much to admire in The Gathering Storm but believes there is still room for improvement in Churchill's writing and storytelling abilities.

It is rumored that Churchill writes his speeches, dictates his books. If that is so, it may account for the superiority of the former over the latter. It is perhaps too much to expect in The Gathering Storm the pithy epigrams, spitfire defiances, and heart-warming eloquence of the war speeches. True, Churchill is as ever an able writer and at times a brilliant one; he is as usual excellent in his summaries and cogent in his argument; and he is occasionally his own sparkling and ironical self. Nevertheless one wishes that he had taken more time, worked over his sentences...