THE FOLIO SOCIETY

Martin Gilbert's award-winning biography is a revealing portrait of one of the most remarkable men of the 20th century – a figure of extraordinary courage, grit, intelligence, determination, patriotism, diplomacy, charm, wit, humour and vision. Winston Churchill (1874-1965) spent 55 years at the forefront of British public life. As a politician and statesman, journalist and Nobel-Prize-winning historian, his legacy is monumental. His achievements can be measured in the sheer depth of his experience of political life - in and out of high office, as a Conservative and Liberal, expressing the sentiment of the nation or hammering home his own fiercely held convictions. But his greatness was sealed by his leadership of Britain during World War II. In the 1930s his was a lone voice warning against the threat posed by a rearming Germany, but history proved him right and Britain's darkest hour was his finest. Churchill's bulldog spirit was a symbol of British resilience and his reputation as a war leader remains undiminished.

For much of his working life Martin Gilbert has dedicated himself to documenting that of Winston Churchill. As part of the official multi-volume biographical project he published 13 volumes of documentary material alone. Churchill: A Life, as well as being an engrossing narrative account, is a remarkable feat of concision. It is a grand alliance of historian and subject.