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 first volume of Churchill’s two-volume biography of his father was an ambitious project. Lord Randolph Churchill had been a much-maligned character toward the middle and end of his life, and part of the purpose of this biography was to lift the haze of scandal surrounding his name.
This first volume deals with early events in Lord Randolph Churchill’s life, including his upbringing, his education, and his quarrel with the Prince of Wales over a woman being courted by his brother. This episode resulted in a temporary exile from society that would serve as a prequel to Randolph’s later disgrace. While Churchill is clearly a supporter of his father’s, he is not afraid to be honest about the mistakes and failures of his career and personal life.
This volume contains the last of Churchill's great speeches from World War II, delivered during the final eight months of the global conflict-and the final period of his time in office. The victory expressed in this volume is mixed. These speeches detail Churchill's public reactions to the forming of the United Nations, the death of Roosevelt, the dropping of the Atomic Bomb, and, lastly, the election that defeats him.Perhaps most notable is the "Gestapo" speech of 1945, in which Churchill made a controversial comparison between a Socialist government and the Gestapo-an extremely charged word at that time-that many believe cost him his job as Prime Minister.
A disturbingly prophetic account of the events leading up to World War II, this anthology is a collection of Churchill’s reporting for the Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard from 1936 to 1939—tracing Hitler’s rise to power, the Nazi invasion of the Rhineland, and other events leading up to the declaration of war.
In the first few years of Nazi ascendance, many European intellectuals and leaders advocated avoiding war and negotiating with Hitler. Churchill is one of the few who understood the scope of the Nazi threat and advocated armament against Germany early on—and his early prescience serves as a fine prediction of his determined stance against Hitler as a World War II leader and statesman.
