Above all, it shows us the wellsprings of his personality – his lifelong desire to please his father (even long after his father’s death) but aristocratic disdain for the opinions of almost everyone else, his love of the British Empire, his sense of history and its connection to the present.ĭuring the Second World War, Churchill summoned a particular scientist to see him several times for technical advice. The book in no way conceals Churchill’s faults and it allows the reader to appreciate his virtues and character in full: his titanic capacity for work (and drink), his ability see the big picture, his willingness to take risks and insistence on being where the action was, his good humour even in the most desperate circumstances, the breadth and strength of his friendships and his extraordinary propensity to burst into tears at unexpected moments. There have been over a thousand previous biographies of Churchill.Īndrew Roberts now draws on over forty new sources, including the private diaries of King George VI, used in no previous Churchill biography to depict him more intimately and persuasively than any of its predecessors.

By the time of his death at the age of 90 in 1965, many thought him to be the greatest man in the world. A magnificently fresh and unexpected biography of Churchill, by one of Britain’s most acclaimed historiansWinston Churchill towers over every other figure in twentieth-century British history.

Churchill destiny