The life of Sir Winston Churchill is the dramatic story of a quarter century and two major wars. No individual influenced these crucial years more than did Churchill, and no author is better qualified to tell the story for a new generation than Olivia Coolidge.
In lively, lucid prose Mrs. Coolidge re-creates the man, his family, his early life. She tells of his youthful escapades during the Boer War; his subsequent rise to Naval Secretary during World War I — brilliant and impetuous, making important decisions, loyal friends, and bitter enemies. Through Mrs. Coolidge's eyes, the reader thoroughly understands Churchill's temporary fall from grace; his later response to the call to lead his nation on the eve of World War II.
Here we see Winston Churchill's forceful personality as he organizes the material and psychological resources of England during the early stages of the war; we witness the famous mid-Atlantic meeting with President Roosevelt; we follow the indefatigable Churchill in North Africa, in Teheran, on the Continent, traveling the length and breadth of England. A Churchill rallying, directing, arguing, listening; a Churchill enjoying to the utmost his strenuous role.
As remarkable as the portrait of Churchill himself is the skillful way in which matters of politics and history are here defined. One finishes the book, not only with a vivid impression of the "great man" himself, but with a clear understanding about the factors that brought about Second World War and the forces of courage, diplomacy, determination, and cooperation that brought victory.
—from the dust jacket
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