Sir Winston S. Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values."
Over a 64-year span, Churchill published over 40 books, many multi-volume definitive accounts of historical events to which he was a witness and participant. All are beautifully written and as accessible and relevant today as when first published.
During his fifty-year political career, Churchill served twice as Prime Minister in addition to other prominent positions—including President of the Board of Trade, First Lord of the Admiralty, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Home Secretary. In the 1930s, Churchill was one of the first to recognize the danger of the rising Nazi power in Germany and to campaign for rearmament in Britain. His leadership and inspired broadcasts and speeches during World War II helped strengthen British resistance to Adolf Hitler—and played an important part in the Allies’ eventual triumph.
One of the most inspiring wartime leaders of modern history, Churchill was also an orator, a historian, a journalist, and an artist. All of these aspects of Churchill are fully represented in this collection of his works.
The fifth in Winston Churchill's six-volume account of World War II picks up at the dawn of a more optimistic time for the Allied forces. After considerable struggle, the balance has finally shifted toward the Allies--and in Closing the Ring, Winston Churchill documents the drive toward victory. With the visionary perspective of one who has both documented and shaped history, Churchill tells us of the destruction of the once-formidable armies of the Third Reich, the bombings of Berlin, and the panic that descended among Hitler's inner circle. Churchill's writing is masterful and highly readable--providing a compelling narrative account of the Allies' end game. But victory was bittersweet for Churchill, who saw the greatness of the British Empire fading even as the war was won. This definitive work provides an intimate look at both this volatile period in history and in Churchill himself--both as a wartime leader and as an individual.
Churchill Sizes Up the Giants of His Age, Offers Wisdom for Our OwnWinston Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on the strength of "his mastery of historical and biographical description." Nowhere is that mastery more evident than in Great Contemporaries (1937), which features Churchill’s brief lives of those he called "Great Men of our age."Great Contemporaries profiles towering figures ranging from Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Lawrence of Arabia, and Leon Trotsky to Charlie Chaplin, H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, and George Bernard Shaw. This edition includes five essays that have never appeared in any previous version, some thirty black-and-white photographs, and an enlightening introduction and annotations by noted Churchill scholar James W. Muller.Written in the decade before Churchill became prime minister, the essays in Great Contemporaries focus on the challenges of statecraft at a time when the democratic revolution was toppling older regimes based on tradition and aristocratic privilege. Churchill’s keen observations take on new importance in our own age of roiling political change.Ultimately, Great Contemporaries provides fascinating insight into the statesman’s perspective. Churchill’s objective is clear: he tries to learn from these giants in order to discover what makes a man great. He approaches his subjects with a measuring eye, finding their limitations at least as revealing as their merits.
The Sinews of Peace is the lesser-known alternate title of the "Iron Curtain Speech" delivered at Westminster College in 1946—where Churchill championed the idea of a "fraternal association" between people of the English-speaking world to preserve the spirit of military and political cooperation forged during the war. President Truman had been present at that speech, and some believed Churchill was suggesting a formal alliance.
This collection contains the first and perhaps most significant of Churchill’s speeches delivered immediately after the war. Within them, it’s easy to see the common theme of European unity and cooperation Churchill is proposing—including a partnership between Germany and France. Europe did grow toward a more unified whole—a result perhaps influenced in no small amount by the words contained within these pages.
