Best Little Stories From The Life And Times Of Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill's life was certainly eventful, and this book presents many of the most fascinating incidents from it, including his teenage prediction that he would one day become defender of England in a horrible future war, his capture and escape from the Boers, his secret heart attack, and many more.

An account of the World War II prime minister's early career covers his contributions to building a modern navy, his experimentations with radical social reforms, and his lesser-known romantic pursuits.

A magnificently fresh and unexpected biography of Churchill, by one of Britain's most acclaimed historians Winston Churchill towers over every other figure in twentieth-century British history. By the time of his death at the age of 90 in 1965, many thought him to be the greatest man in the world. There have been over a thousand previous biographies of Churchill. Andrew 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. 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. 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. During the Second World War, Churchill summoned a particular scientist to see him several times for technical advice. 'It was the same whenever we met', wrote the young man, 'I had a feeling of being recharged by a source of living power.' Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt's emissary, wrote 'Wherever he was, there was a battlefront.' Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, Churchill's essential partner in strategy and most severe critic in private, wrote in his diary, 'I thank God I was given such an opportunity of working alongside such a man, and of having my eyes opened to the fact that occasionally supermen exist on this earth.'

Written in the tradition of Stefan Zweig’s biographical studies, Haffner’s Churchill is a concise, effective, warts-and-all analysis of one of the giants of the twentieth century. Beginning with a brief history of the Churchill family, Haffner examines the future Prime Minister’s childhood; his early failures in school and in politics; his indomitable energy and drive; how he managed to become an inspirational figure to anti-Nazis all over the world; and how he managed to seize success from the jaws of defeat over and over again. Compact, elegant and incisive, this is the one book about Churchill that is a must-read. “One of the most brilliant things of any length written about Churchill.” — The Times Literary Supplement “Fast-moving and perceptive.” — The (London) Times “A wonderful portrait of Churchill.” — Die Zeit “A ravishing biography.” — Der Spiegel “[A] fascinating psychological study of Britain’s greatest war leader... a pleasure to put on your bookshelf” — Tribune “His Meaning of Hitler published in 1978 remains a masterpiece of historiography. His Churchill biography gives the first indication of his great talent for brief, wonderfully graphic insights.” — Süddeutsche Zeitung “Of all [Haffner’s] books, this is the one that stays in my memory.” — Marcel Reich-Ranicki “[Haffner] was an ‘admirer of great men’ and among all the biographies of Winston Churchill his brief sketch of the man who ‘risked Britain in order to defeat Hitler’ is a model of historically empathetic veneration.” — Joachim Fest “Astute, short, analytical, like all Haffner’s work. Cuts away anything that is not bare essential, what remains stays with you for a lifetime.” — J. AB Sennef, Quora “What distinguishes this brilliant biography is its partisanship. It does not list facts in order and evaluate them. Every sentence is witness to the fact that the biographer loves this man with all his failings.” — Wolfgang Franssen, Belletristik Couch “A jewel. Haffner lived through the decisive years in Britain and gives a convincing description the fragile atmosphere in which Churchill fought his battles.” — Tarzan von Aquin “[Haffner was] one of the great historians and journalists of the last century.” —Andrew Roberts

A WALL STREET JOURNAL SUMMER PICK A WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER Warrior and writer, genius and crank, rider in the British cavalry’s last great charge and inventor of the tank, Winston Churchill led Britain to fight alone against Nazi Germany in the fateful year of 1940 and set the standard for leading a democracy at war. With penetrating insight and vivid anecdotes, Gretchen Rubin makes Churchill accessible and meaningful to twenty-first-century readers by analyzing the many contrasting views of the man: he was an alcoholic, he was not; he was an anachronism, he was a visionary; he was a racist, he was a humanitarian; he was the most quotable man in the history of the English language, he was a bore. Like no other portrait of its famous subject, Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill is a dazzling display of facts more improbable than fiction. It brings to full realization the depiction of a man too fabulous for any novelist to construct, too complex for even the longest narrative to describe, and too significant ever to be forgotten.

Behind the tangled alliances, feuding royals, and deadly battles are the nearly 100 riveting true stories of the men and women who lived, fought, and survived the first Great War. Based on the writings of soldiers, politicians, kings, nurses, and military leaders, Best Little Stories from World War I humanizes their foibles, triumphs, and tragedies—and chronicles how the emergence of fervent national pride led not only to ruthless combat, but a critical turning point in the twentieth century. Fascinating characters come to life, including: Lady Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnavon, who turned her husband's Highclere Castle into a luxurious military hospital for British officers (and inspired the hit television show Downton Abbey). Otto Roosen, the high-flying German reconnaissance pilot, who was shot down not only one but twice—first by the Canadian ace Billy Bishop and then by a fellow German—and survived. Arthur Guy Empey, the American who volunteered for the British Army after the sinking of the Lusitania, then wrote a bestselling memoir about life in the muddy trenches of the western front.

This book examines Winston Churchill’s role in the creation and development of the Anglo–American special relationship. Drawing together world leading and emergent scholars, this volume offers a critical celebration of Churchill’s contribution to establishing the Anglo–American special relationship. Marking the seventieth anniversary of Churchill’s pronouncement in 1946 of that special relationship in his famous Iron Curtain speech, the book provides new insights into old debates by drawing upon approaches and disciplines that have hitherto been marginalised or neglected. The book foregrounds agency, culture, values, ideas and the construction and representation of special Anglo–American relations, past and present. The volume covers two main themes. Firstly, it identifies key influences upon Churchill as he developed his political career, especially processes and patterns of Anglo–American convergence prior to and during World War Two. Second, it provides insights into how Churchill sought to promote a post-war Anglo–American special relationship, how he discursively constructed it and how he has remained central to that narrative to the present day. From this analysis emerges new understanding of the raw material from which Churchill conjured special UK–US relations and of how his conceptualisation of that special relationship has been shaped and re-shaped in the decades after 1946. This book will be of much interest to students of Anglo–American relations, Cold War Studies, foreign policy, international history and IR in general.

What do Winston Churchill—the eloquent, eternally quotable wordsmith, pudgy politician of fifty years, wealthy aristocrat, war-time Prime Minister of England—and Donald Trump, the 6’4”, brash, Twitter happy, political neophyte, billionaire entrepreneur—have in common? In his new book, complete with never-before-told anecdotes, bestselling author Nick Adams explores how both leaders, with seemingly nothing in common, turned their day’s prevailing politics on its head. In doing so, they both endured shockingly similar battles instigated by the political establishment seeking their destruction. Trump and Churchill’s unorthodox approach to both domestic and international relations has rescued Western Civilization from the brink.