Churchill: Walking with Destiny
by Andrew Roberts
1104 pages
Allen Lane / Viking
Release Date: Nov 27, 2018 (intl edition)

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Almost no historical figure is as complex, colorful and beloved as Winston Churchill. Hundreds of biographies have been written of Britain’s most famous Prime Minister, but Andrew Roberts was able to draw upon dozens of new sources including the diaries of King George VI while creating this comprehensive portrait of Churchill.

Some critics are already asking whether this is the best single-volume biography of Churchill ever written, and more than one has suggested its superiority is “unarguable.”  But based on reviews from casual readers – the only opinion that really matters – it is not only one the best biography of Winston Churchill…it may be one of the very best biographers ever written. Think about that!

I’m buying copy in about five minutes – I’ll let you know how it turns out!

Third-party reviews and links:

• The New York Times review dated March 13, 2018 (by Richard Aldous)
• Wall Street Journal review dated Nov 16, 2018 (by Tunku Varadarajan)
• The Economist review dated Oct 4, 2018
• The (UK) Spectator review dated November 2018 (by Philip Ziegler)
• The (UK) Guardian review dated Oct 29, 2018 review (by Robert McCrum)
• The (UK) Catholic Herald review dated Jan 3, 2019 (by David Oldroyd-Bolt)

From the publisher:

“In this landmark biography of Winston Churchill based on extensive new material, the true genius of the man, statesman and leader can finally be fully seen and understood–by the bestselling, award-winning author of Napoleon and The Storm of War.When we seek an example of great leaders with unalloyed courage, the person who comes to mind is Winston Churchill: the iconic, visionary war leader immune from the consensus of the day, who stood firmly for his beliefs when everyone doubted him. But how did young Winston become Churchill? What gave him the strength to take on the superior force of Nazi Germany when bombs rained on London and so many others had caved? In Churchill, Andrew Roberts gives readers the full and definitive Winston Churchill, from birth to lasting legacy, as personally revealing as it is compulsively readable.Roberts gained exclusive access to extensive new material: transcripts of War Cabinet meetings, diaries, letters and unpublished memoirs from Churchill’s contemporaries. The Royal Family permitted Roberts–in a first for a Churchill biographer–to read the detailed notes taken by King George VI in his diary after his weekly meetings with Churchill during World War II. This treasure trove of access allows Roberts to understand the man in revelatory new ways, and to identify the hidden forces fueling Churchill’s legendary drive.We think of Churchill as a hero who saved civilization from the evils of Nazism and warned of the grave crimes of Soviet communism, but Roberts’s masterwork reveals that he has as much to teach us about the challenges leaders face today–and the fundamental values of courage, tenacity, leadership and moral conviction.”