In the Footsteps of Churchill

Richard Holmess insightful new biography of one of Britains greatest leaders is both a study in character and the story of an extraordinary career. Much has been written about Churchills role as British prime minister during the crisis years of the Second World War, but in this book Holmes uses new material to investigate the influences that shaped the man: his troubled schooldays, his flamboyant politician father, Randolph, and his famously attractive American mother, Jennie. Holmes argues that the qualities that made Churchill great also led him to commit catastrophic blunders. The same recklessness that made him a hero when he was a young correspondent during the Boer War arguably cost thousands of Allied lives during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915, and may also have contributed to the fall of Singapore in 1942. ''In the Footsteps of Churchill'' takes us on an exhilarating journey through Harrow School, the North-West Frontier, the Sudan, South Africa, 10 Downing Street and his beloved Chartwell; a journey that begins in the aristocratic splendour of Blenheim Palace and ends in the quiet of a country churchyard not far away the compass of an extraordinary life in a few Oxfordshire acres. ''Richard Holmes provides a truly fresh interpretation of the great man Holmess mature and wise portrait is studded with facts about the period and episodes in Churchills life that amuse, engage and entice. The authors eye for the telling detail, as well as his deep immersion in all the relevant archives, raises this book far above the common ruck of Churchilliana. Andrew Roberts This supremely skilful military historian achieves a freshness of approach that makes Churchill hard to put down. Max Hastings, Mail on Sunday