Churchill: Walking with Destiny

Winston Churchill may be problematic to many modern sensibilities. Certainly, he was an unreconstructed colonialist and in some people’s eyes that condemns him for all time, end of argument. But I believe, as surely Andrew Roberts does as well, that it is a perilous and dishonest thing to take a person out of the context of their times. We shouldn’t whitewash Churchill or any other great leader. They are human beings after all. Churchill’s flaws were as outsized as his strengths.

But if ever there was a meeting of a man and a moment, it is Churchill and the first couple of years of the Second World War. Without his inspiring and stalwart leadership and his soaring rhetoric (“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds … we shall never surrender”), it is hard to imagine Great Britain holding out for the two years it took to bring the United States into the fight. I have read a number of books that focus on or feature Churchill, including the magnificent first volume of William Manchester’s biography, “The Last Lion,” but Andrew Roberts’ book stands for me as the definitive account of this man’s incredible life. — Chris, June 13, 2026

Synopsis from online sources:

“Unarguably the best single-volume biography of Churchill … A brilliant feat of storytelling, monumental in scope, yet put together with tenderness for a man who had always believed that he would be Britain’s savior.” — Wall Street Journal

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 Last King of America.”

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Roberts gained exclusive access to extensive new material: transcripts of War Cabinet meetings, diaries, letters and unpublished memoirs from Churchill’s contemporaries.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.