Combining these with the mountain of memoirs, Cabinet papers, and other sources previously available, of which he has encyclopedic knowledge, Gilbert gives us a portrait of the war leader we have never had before. The author has had first use of Churchill’s private papers and of certain diaries and letters of co-workers, which he has supplemented with interviews.

Gilbert relates Churchill’s views of the great events and decisions, and the observations of Churchill’s part in them by those around him, often from day to day and hour to hour. We accompany Churchill through two years and four months of mortal peril, from September 3, 1939, the day Britain went to war with Hitler, and the day Churchill ended his ten years in the wilderness by joining the government as First Lord of the Admiralty, to December 12, 1941, five days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which, by bringing the United States into the war, gave Churchill the assurance of Britain’s ultimate victory. Gilbert has remained true to Randolph’s motto for the work, “He shall be his own biographer.” The historian remains in the background, allowing the hero to stand forth and tell the story in his own words.Īnd so our hero does, across 1,274 pages, in letters, memoranda, minutes, and speeches. He replaced Churchill’s son Randolph as the official biographer when the latter died after completing the first two volumes. Gilbert, whose prodigious labors have established him as a leading historian, is an Oxford don who counts a number of works on Jewish history among his scholarly achievements. In this, the sixth volume of the authorized biography, the monumental work reaches its apogee. That story has never been told with anything approaching the thoroughness and detail of Martin Gilbert’s Finest Hour, 1939-1941.

But his friends continued to encourage him, one writing, “In spite of what I hear you say, you have yet a great life before you.”Ĭhurchill’s then thirty-five-year career, which had seen triumphs and a debacle that had almost ruined him, was, as his friend presciently wrote, merely the prelude to the most inspiring chapter in the history of political leadership. Cut off from power, his warnings about the Nazi danger ignored, his judgment doubted, and his motives impugned, Churchill had reason to be pessimistic about his political future, his career appeared to be largely behind him, and he assumed he was entering the last decade of his life. On November 30, 1934, Winston Churchill celebrated his sixtieth birthday.

Winston churchill by martin gilbert