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.
1942 was an important turning point in World War II. Britain and its allies had faced considerable challenges thus far. Beset by bombings and devastated by personal loss and the restrictions of war, the British public was losing patience with the war effort-and their prime minister. Churchill faced an uphill battle in his military efforts as well as in gathering political and public support for the struggle to come.But when the US joined the war, at the end of 1941, the tides turned. Churchill has been quoted as saying he felt certain of the Allied victory with the US on his side-and his speeches reflect a renewed sense of hope and conviction. This collection of wartime speeches from 1942 provides an interesting historical commentary on this volatile time in history-from the point of view of one of its most prominent wartime leaders.
This second volume in Churchill's five-volume series The World Crisis is by far the most personal-dealing frankly with Churchill's failures as a military leader and his ultimately unsuccessful battle to break the European deadlock. After the disastrous Gallipoli landings on the Dardanelles, Winston Churchill served for several months as commander of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. During this time, he served on one of the most violent stretches of the front lines, making a total of 36 courageous expeditions into No Man's Land. Here, Churchill provides an unflinching narrative of a particularly challenging time in World War I and in his own career-providing fascinating insight into the mental and psychological challenges faced by a major historical leader.
The second volume of Winston Churchill's six-volume definitive historical and autobiographical account of World War II, Their Finest Hour picks up where The Gathering Storm left off--with the fall of France to Hitler's forces and Britain's stand as the lone defender against the Nazi war machine. Britain was virtually alone in its definitive stand against Hitler for eight months. Through internal memoranda, personal correspondence, and other contemporary documents, Churchill reveals hidden aspects of the war--such as how much Britain really knew about Germany's plans for invasion and Hitler's attack on Russia; secret negotiations with Spain, the conflicts within the French resistance movement; and an intelligence leak that led to failure in West Africa. As both a witness and a shaper of history during this volatile time, readers can ask for no better guide than Winston Churchill.
