Lord Halifax

A close Anglo-American partnership was a guiding principle in Churchill’s thinking about international relations. The creation of such a partnership was a central aspect of his long political career. While still a young backbench Member of Parliament, he said, “it ought to be the main end of English statecraft over a long period of years to cultivate good relations with the United States.” In 1918 he declared it his hope that the two countries would “act permanently together.”

Both Churchill and Chamberlain understood that Nazi Germany was a time bomb. But whereas Chamberlain imagined that it could be defused by diplomacy, Churchill believed that it could only be defused by force, or the threat of force. When the diplomacy of appeasement failed Chamberlain was compelled to accept—albeit with the profound reluctance of a man who loathed war—that no other response was possible. In the final analysis the British Empire, which was already in decline, had to be sacrificed so that Britain itself could live.

In the best biography since 1991, Roberts's witty, fluent, flowing prose captures the adventure, energy, and incessant movement that Churchill produced.

Andrew Roberts lectures on "The Importance of Churchill for Today" at the Hillsdale National Leadership Seminar on Principles and Politics.