The description of Paris in the spring of 1940 the account of the household habits of Churchill the 'atrophy of spirit'' of the Allies, especially the French, weary of war even before it started, then wary of it once underway - all are sketched with surpassing skill, almost pointillist precision. At the conclusion of this volume, as at the conclusion of Churchill's life, the discerning may wish it were longer.įor this is a book that is brilliant and beautiful, evocative and enervating. Every word Churchill spoke meant something, and so it is with this book, even at more than 1,100 pages.

Churchill's passage through World War II is the wheat of this vast field, but even the chaff is history itself, beautifully rendered. 'Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965'' is a long book, and in truth a deft editor could have cut out half, very likely more, with ease. Churchill's life is the story of how the indomitable will of one man, endowed with a lyrical mind and booming voice, could stand athwart history and all the probabilities of European geopolitics in the 1940s and say yes - to freedom, to military victory, to literary mastery.

Churchill's war years (followed by his coda as a Conservative prime minister in the early 1950s) constitute the greatest tale of the 20th century, one of determination, motivation, and adaptation.

Paul reid the last lion