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Since my high school days, I’ve considered Winston Churchill the most intriguing figure in world history. He told someone who admired his paintings, “Genius has many outlets.” In his case, he was not only a talented artist but also a politician, statesman, author, and orator. While doing research for my last book, I came across references to Churchill’s visits to the White House to meet with Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. No one had ever closely investigated these sojourns at critical times of WW II and the Cold War. A book was born.
Roberts, a prolific historian and biographer, provides Churchill's best one-volume life. The author’s mastery of the material and his access to previously unavailable sources make this portrayal both definitive and comprehensive.
Chapter after chapter, Roberts captures the many different dimensions of a life like no other. The book’s energetic prose mirrors its animated subject.
One of The Wall Street Journal's Ten Best Books of 2018 One of The Economist's Best Books of 2018 One of The New York Times's Notable Books of 2018
"Unarguably the best single-volume biography of Churchill . . . A brilliant feat of storytelling, monumental in scope, yet put together with tenderness for a man who had always believed that he would be Britain's savior." -Wall Street Journal
In this landmark biography of Winston Churchill based on extensive new material, the true genius of the man, statesman and leader can finally be fully seen and understood--by…
Since my high school days, I’ve considered Winston Churchill the most intriguing figure in world history. He told someone who admired his paintings, “Genius has many outlets.” In his case, he was not only a talented artist but also a politician, statesman, author, and orator. While doing research for my last book, I came across references to Churchill’s visits to the White House to meet with Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. No one had ever closely investigated these sojourns at critical times of WW II and the Cold War. A book was born.
The Second War united Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in a close and historic relationship. The two Allied leaders spent over a hundred days together in the White House and at conferences held in several other countries, including Morocco, Iran, Canada, Egypt, and the Soviet Union.
Despite the impression that they were boon companions, what they really thought of each other is shrouded in mystery. The pair, however, jointly helped save Western democracy, as Meacham explains, with authority and grace.
The most complete portrait ever drawn of the complex emotional connection between two of history’s towering leaders
Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were the greatest leaders of “the Greatest Generation.” In Franklin and Winston, Jon Meacham explores the fascinating relationship between the two men who piloted the free world to victory in World War II. It was a crucial friendship, and a unique one—a president and a prime minister spending enormous amounts of time together (113 days during the war) and exchanging nearly two thousand messages. Amid cocktails, cigarettes, and cigars, they met, often secretly, in…
Since my high school days, I’ve considered Winston Churchill the most intriguing figure in world history. He told someone who admired his paintings, “Genius has many outlets.” In his case, he was not only a talented artist but also a politician, statesman, author, and orator. While doing research for my last book, I came across references to Churchill’s visits to the White House to meet with Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. No one had ever closely investigated these sojourns at critical times of WW II and the Cold War. A book was born.
In muscular prose that foreshadows his later writing, Churchill chronicles the drama of his first quarter-century. He devotes much of the memorable narrative to his military derring-do in far-off lands of the British Empire at the end of the 19th century.
What Tennyson, in his poem Ulysses, called the “delight of battle” can be seen throughout Churchill’s adventures. Combat is exhilarating and dangerous at the same time.
Here, in his own words, are the fascinating first thirty years in the life of one of the most provocative and compelling leaders of the twentieth century: Winston Churchill.
As a visionary, statesman, and historian, and the most eloquent spokesman against Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill was one of the greatest figures of the twentieth century. In this autobiography, Churchill recalls his childhood, his schooling, his years as a war correspondent in South Africa during the Boer War, and his first forays into politics as a member of Parliament. My Early Life not only gives readers insights into the shaping of…
Since my high school days, I’ve considered Winston Churchill the most intriguing figure in world history. He told someone who admired his paintings, “Genius has many outlets.” In his case, he was not only a talented artist but also a politician, statesman, author, and orator. While doing research for my last book, I came across references to Churchill’s visits to the White House to meet with Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. No one had ever closely investigated these sojourns at critical times of WW II and the Cold War. A book was born.
At a time when public figures invariably delegate speechwriting to anonymous wordsmiths, Churchill is a throwback to an earlier era when a speaker’s oratory was the original work of the speaker. In Churchill’s case, he knew what he composed would project his voice (and thinking) more compellingly than any “ghosted” text.
The noted American broadcaster Edward R. Murrow once observed that Churchill “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.” The speeches he dictated and then carefully revised were the principal reasons he was awarded the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The most eloquent and expressive statesman of his time - phrases such as 'iron curtain', 'business as usual', 'the few', and 'summit meeting' passed quickly into everyday use - Winston Churchill used language as his most powerful weapon at a time when his most frequent complaint was that the armoury was otherwise empty.
In this volume, David Cannadine selects thirty-three orations ranging over fifty years, demonstrating how Churchill gradually hones his rhetoric until the day when, with spectacular effect, 'he mobilized the English language, and sent it into battle' (Edward R. Murrow).
The Second World War featured prominently in comics and conversations with adults when I was a boy. Knowing about the war and its origins was a way to make sense of the world. As an undergraduate, my history professor insisted I also study economics. That has helped my study of strategy, which is also concerned with choices between alternative uses of scarce resources. However, dry analysis is not enough for a historian. It mattered that Churchill and Chamberlain had different personalities. I try to recapture the political passions of the past and the uncertainty people felt then about the future.
I first read this book half a century ago and still enjoy rereading it. Churchill’s style is modeled on the great historians of the 18th and 19th centuries. He argues with conviction and clarity that war could have been prevented.
However, I find myself echoing a 19th century prime minister who said of the historian Macaulay: ‘I wish I were as sure of anything in this world as [he] is of everything.’
I’m fascinated by the obsession that we as a society have with making policy, but not whether policy works, and how policy is treated as a magic bullet to the social problems that we all care about. But my experience is that it’s not ideas that solve problems; it’s action that solves problems. This fascination has led me to become a professor of public policy and administration, where I have read extensively about this issue for over a decade and written two books and over four dozen articles. My work focuses on how ideas are translated into actions and how those actions impact our communities.
I like that this book makes Winston Churchill’s powerful oratory style and poetic words easily accessible. Churchill was a master at speaking in a way that ignited the passion of others and focused them on common goals.
To be able to see and study those words really provides insights into how to shape the way others think about the world. It also opens the door to many historical issues that often get buried in some of the grander narratives about Churchill’s time.
Winston Churchill knew the power of words. In speeches, books, and articles, he expressed his feelings and laid out his vision for the future. His wartime writings and speeches have fascinated generation after generation with their powerful narrative style and thoughtful reflection.Martin Gilbert, Churchill's official biographer, has chosen passages that express the essence of Churchill's thoughts and describe,in his own inimitable words,the main adventures of his life and the main crises of his career. From first to last, they give insight into his life, how it evolved, and how he made his mark on the British and world stage.
Anthony Tucker-Jones, a former intelligence officer, is an author, commentator, and writer who specializes in military history, with well over 60 books to his name. His work has also been published in an array of magazines and online. He regularly appears on television and radio commenting on current and historical military matters.
Churchill is perhaps best remembered for his bulldog premiership during the Second World War. Max Hasting’s excellent study graphically portrays the enormous political and strategic stresses and strains endured by Churchill. Coalition warfare was one of vigorously competing interests and Hastings shows how Churchill achieved a quite remarkable juggling act.
'I would choose this account over and above the rest. It is a fabulous book: full of perceptive insight that conveys all the tragedy, triumph, humour and intense drama of Churchill's time as wartime leader; and it is incredibly moving as a result' James Holland, Literary Review
In this vivid biography, #1 bestselling historian Max Hastings tells the story of how Churchill led a nation through its darkest hour.
A moving, dramatic narrative of crisis and fortitude, Hastings offers one of the finest biographies of one of Britain's finest men.
When Churchill took power as Prime Minister in 1940, it…
Award-winning journalist and historian Andrew Nagorski was born in Scotland to Polish parents, moved to the United States as an infant, and has rarely stopped moving since. During a long career at Newsweek, he served as the magazine's bureau chief in Hong Kong, Moscow, Rome, Bonn, Warsaw, and Berlin. In 1982, he gained international notoriety when the Kremlin, angered by his enterprising reporting, expelled him from the Soviet Union. Nagorski is the author of seven books, including The Nazi Huntersand Hitlerland.
Leave it to Churchill to sum up the events of 1941 that determined the ultimate outcome of the war. In his words, the theme of this volume of his epic account of the war is “How the British fought on with Hardship their Garment until Soviet Russia and the United States were drawn into the Great Conflict.” Much of this consists of letters, reports, speeches, and other original documents from that period, woven together by its skillful narrator. Little wonder that Churchill was later awarded the Noble Prize in Literature "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”
Winston Churchill's six-volume history of the cataclysm that swept the world remains the definitive history of the Second World War. Lucid, dramatic, remarkable both for its breadth and sweep and for its sense of personal involvement, it is universally acknowledged as a magnificent reconstruction and is an enduring, compelling work that led to his being awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. The Grand Alliance recounts the momentous events of 1941 surrounding America's entry into the War and Hitler's march on Russia - the continuing onslaught on British civilians during the Blitz, Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and the alliance between…
Gemma is the bestselling author of historical fiction novels, translated into several languages. Set against the backdrop of war in Europe, her fifth book in this genre will be released later this year. She has combined the war experiences of family members in WWI and WWII, information collected during her research and travels, and her academic studies in writing and history, to create the authentic scenes and characters for her books.
This 900-page history is a vivid account of WWII across all fronts. Though the research is meticulous and covers the length of the war, the explanations are clear and fascinating and the chronology makes it feel like a guided tour through time. Along the way, Gilbert interposes a human face and a very personal account, revealing upheaval and atrocities, but ensuring that there is a permanent record of those civilians, particularly Jews, who died without just cause. And the examples and conditions endured are at times difficult to read and heartbreaking. The book covers all aspects, from battle lines to partisan attacks, to numbers killed, to firsthand accounts, to Hitler’s inners circle, and more. This is an outstanding read and this book is just one of Gilbert’s many significant contributions as a historian.
Originally published by Weidenfeld in 1989 and now available in paperback, a history of the Second World War, which looks at its political, diplomatic, military and civilian aspects.
I am a reporter and author with a passion for seeking out stories less told, and there are plenty of those in Central Asia, where I made my home more than two decades ago: first in Uzbekistan and, since 2005, in Kazakhstan. I have found telling overlooked tales from an overlooked region that is overshadowed by its mighty neighbours – the Russian bear to the north and the Chinese dragon to the east – to be both rewarding and valuable. I hope these book selections will bring more stories about the people who populate Central Asia to the attention of readers with inquisitive minds.
In the 1990s when I worked at the British Embassy in Moscow organising social functions I met a kind, elderly, white-haired man who came to visit the ambassador. Sir Fitzroy Maclean was a distinguished former diplomat, war veteran, politician, and writer, but still he found time to chat with a lowly staff member about Soviet history – and when he got home, he sent me his book. Eastern Approaches is a captivating memoir of Maclean’s diplomatic service in the USSR during Stalin’s Terror, when he sneaked undercover into Central Asia and experienced many escapades, including run-ins with the Soviet secret police. His tales of derring-do evoke a bygone age – but his expressive portrayals of the people and landscapes of Central Asia are recognisable to anyone travelling in this alluring region today.
70th Anniversary Edition with a New Foreword by Sunday Times Bestselling Author Simon Sebag Montefiore
'A classic' Observer | 'A legend' Washington Post | 'The best book you will read this year' Colonel Tim Collins
Posted to Moscow as a young diplomat before the Second World War, Fitzroy Maclean travelled widely, with or without permission, in some of the wildest and remotest parts of the Soviet Union, then virtually closed to foreigners. In 1942 he fought as a founder member of the SAS in North Africa. There Maclean specialised in hair-raising commando raids behind enemy lines, including the daring and…
