'By far the most lucid, comprehensive and authoritative account of Churchill that has been offered in a single volume. It furnishes a crown to Gilbert's already prodigious labours.' Philip Ziegler, Daily Telegraph

'One of the greatest histories of our time.' Margaret Thatcher

'Fresh insights and raw information abound in this superb volume.' Daily Express

'A tour de force.' John Major

'Genuinely riveting... Genius, courage, generosity, humour and imagination shine through. The narrative is compulsively interesting.' Robert Silver, Financial Times

'... Gilbert's method is highly successful. This is a surprisingly readable book... His account of Churchill's childhood... made me cry.' Angus Calder, New Statesman

'... suitably buttressed by twenty pages of very clear maps' Roy Jenkins, The Independent on Sunday

'runs along smoothly, carrying the delighted reader with it.... Gilbert's job was to bring alive before his readers a man of extraordinary genius, and scarcely less extraordinary destiny. He had done so triumphantly.' Hugh Brogan, New York Times Book Review

'Gilbert's job was to bring alive before his readers a man of extraordinary genius, and scarcely less extraordinary destiny. He had done so triumphantly.' Hugh Brogan, New York Times Book Review

'This is the finest single volume yet written on the life of Churchill.' Michael Coren, Toronto Star

'Essential reading for anybody wanting to take in one volume the record of the man of whom it can fairly be said that he strode his times like a colossus and left footprints which time will never obliterate. For those who can remember, some of the events reported her much becomes clearer, and for those striving to understand our (twentieth) century, mush which will enlighten.' Frank Cranston, Canberra Times

'A masterpiece of scholarship. It demolishes the myth of Churchill the childhood dunce, and presents him convincingly in later life as a social radical, committed to improvements in the lot of ordinary citizens. It implores the strategic labyrinths of two world wars with an enviable clarity.' Guardian

'He is, above all, a marshaller of material on a gigantic scale, the Bruckner of biography...The nakedness of the narrative proclaims its honesty, its unpretentiousness and its erudition.' The Times

'The greatest adventure story of the century.' Sunday Telegraph

'A magnificent work...it provides a vividly revealing window on to national and world history from 1900 to 1955.' Times Education Supplement