Churchill

Winston Churchill, prime minister and leader of the wartime alliance against Nazi Germany, is a towering figure. When Churchill died, writes Sebastian Haffner, ‘it seemed as if not a mere mortal was buried, but English history itself.’ Haffner’s book is slim, fast-paced and written with the body barely cold. It can, however, be read with great pleasure, profit and speed without the slightest danger of tiring grey cells or arms. The mind behind it, to adapt a phrase of Bryan Magee’s, was provincial neither in time nor in place. (Part of the 20 Prime Ministers Series)