Introduction

In 2018, Andrew Roberts wrote in Churchill: Walking with Destiny, works about Sir Winston Churchill topped 1000. This catalogue piles on, listing more than 1100, nearly 900 of which we have annotated. Winston Churchill was the subject of his first biography in 1905 when he was 30 years old. The flow hasn’t stopped. Here in the 21st century, 100 years later, some years see over 20 new Churchill titles.

The word “works” denotes any item individually published, from brief pamphlets to books large and small. Compiling and describing them is the purpose of this online listing, which will be updated seriatim. I hope it will serve as a living guide to the vast literature on the Greatest Briton.

Credits

This catalogue would not exist without the efforts of two bibliographic pioneers, H. Ashley Redburn (1914-1996) and Curt J. Zoller (1920-2014). They worked separately, and then together, updating their findings through the Churchill Societies. Curt also co-authored (with Michael McMenamin) Becoming Winston Churchill: The Untold Story of Winston and his American Mentor. Ashley’s work abides, not least with the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. See “Remembering Richard Haking: The General Who Saved Churchill’s Life.”

Curt Zoller’s Annotated Bibliography of Works about Sir Winston S. Churchill (M.E. Sharpe, 2004) contains the full publishing history of works through that date. It also offers several additional lists not covered here: books and articles “substantially about” Churchill (e.g., the Alanbrooke Diaries); reviews of Churchill’s own works; dissertations and theses. His book remains available, and is the best source for this data.

Nomenclature

For books with contributions, all contributors are identified, although their full titles may be edited for space. The word “Reprints” means only that a work was reprinted, hardbound or softbound. Consult the Zoller Bibliography for complete publishing histories. The word “e-book” indicates either a Kindle or other electronic edition.

Annotations (✸) and Acknowledgements

Annotations were written only for books personally examined. Through 2004, all save a handful (bylined) were written by me for Zoller Section A: “Works Entirely about Winston S. Churchill.” From 2005 on, bylines are supplied, most frequently: Antoine Capet (AC), Paul H. Courtenay (PHC), Michael McMenamin (McM), William John Shepherd (WJS) and myself (RML). Other bylines are spelled out. Links to reviews are provided for Hillsdale and other publications with which the writers are connected.

The efforts and assistance of many contributors were profound. I am particularly grateful to Antoine Capet, Dave Turrell, Soren Geiger, and the Hillsdale College Churchill Fellows for kind assistance and corrections. Professor James Muller, University of Alaska, Anchorage, valuably proofread and made numerous corrections. The remaining errors are all mine. —Richard M. Langworth

How to search the list.

Click here. Please do not attempt to find items by scrolling. Instead, use the search box on your browser. On Macs, click “Apple-f.” A box will appear where you can enter an author, title, date or topic. PCs offer similar browser searches.

Sample entries from first to last

1905

Scott, A. MacCallum. Winston Spencer Churchill. London: Methuen, 1905, 270 pp. ✸ The first biography, written by an admirer when Churchill was only 31. Though untainted by knowledge of future greatness, the author wrote favorably about young Winston and predicted that he would eventually become prime minister.

1928

Sydenham of Combe, Col. The Lord, et al. ‘The World Crisis’ by Winston Churchill: A Criticism. London: Hutchinson, 192 pp., 1928. Reprints. ✸ A critique of Churchill’s The World Crisis, vol. 3, 1916-1918. Contributors also consider the Dardanelles campaign in Churchill’s vol. 2. An important critical work, sufficiently powerful that Churchill replied to it in part in his 1931 abridged edition of The World Crisis. Contributors: Admiral Sir R. Bacon: “Mr. Churchill and Jutland.” Major-General Sir W.D. Bird: “Mr. Churchill’s Opinions: Some Other Points of View.” Major-General Sir F. Maurice: “Joffre, Galliéni and the Marne.” Sir Charles Oman: “The German Losses on the Somme.” Lord Sydenham of Combe: “Mr. Churchill as Historian.”

1942

Unknown. Winston Churchill: Mein Bundesgenosse. Aussprüche aus zwei Jahrzehnten [Winston Churchill: My Ally. Sayings of Two Decades]. Berlin: Nibelungen Verlag, 1942, 110 pp., softbound, text in German; several translations, including Mon Allié Staline in French. ✸ Forward by “Victor” [Arnold Littmann]. German propaganda, quoting Churchill’s anti-Bolshevik writings from pre-World War II years, with reproductions of political cartoons, which offer many a ripe irony indeed. The “Ally” was Stalin.

1947

Coote, Colin R. and Batchelor, Denzil, eds. Maxims and Reflections of the Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1947, 176 pp. Reprints through 1992. ✸ The first book of Churchill quotations, and still a model of the genre. Coote, a friend of Churchill’s with a long tenure at London’s Daily Telegraph, diligently sought the most interesting expressions from Churchill’s speeches and writings, verifying his citations, arranging them by general categories and adding accompanying notes. And so this became an authoritative source, a first.

1952

Taylor, Robert Lewis. Winston Churchill: An Informal Study of Greatness. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1952, 434 pp. Reprints through 1961. Retitled The Amazing Mr. Churchill, 1962. Translations: German, Hebrew, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish. ✸ Outwardly bearing every sign of a postwar potboiler, this is actually a scholarly anecdotal biography in which Taylor found and quoted people who knew Churchill as far back as the Boer War. Though hampered by the lack of footnotes, index and bibliography, it offers many unique sources.

1955

Urquhart, Fred, compiler. WSC: A Cartoon Biography. London: Cassell, 1955, 242 pp. ✸ Published to mark Churchill’s 80th birthday, this is still a standard work on Churchill political cartoons. Sources run from Nazi to Tory, Liberal to Bolshevik, tracing Churchill’s entire career from youthful war correspondent to postwar Prime Minister. Explanatory notes by the editor place each illustration in context and credit the artist and publication.

1963

Thompson, R.W. The Yankee Marlborough. London: George Allen and Unwin; Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1963, 364 pp. Translations: French. ✸ A critique perhaps overly based on recollections of Churchill’s rueful ex-friend Desmond Morton, who was dropped by WSC and never got over it. Thompson contends that WSC’s American blood gave him energy, his British blood romance, but Kirkus Reviews dissented: “That Churchill is egocentric is not a new charge, but that his was a narcissism so complete that the only person capable of interrupting his self-adoration was his Nanny is a charge repeated and examined at ridiculous length.”

1966

The Official Biography

At over twenty million words in thirty-one volumes, recently completed by Hillsdale College Press, this is the longest biography in history. For clarity and simplicity, we list first the eight narrative volumes, followed by their supporting document volumes. The term “official” does not mean that the authors were obliged to take an authorized line or avoid certain subjects, because they never were. To order copies, click here.

The Narrative Volumes

Churchill, Randolph S. Winston S. Churchill, vol. 1: Youth 1874-1900. London: Heinemann; Boston: Houghton Mifflin (also published by Houghton Mifflin for the Literary Guild), 1966. Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2006. 608 pp. ✸ Based on thousands of papers in the Churchill Archives and other sources, Randolph Churchill’s work was received with general praise. Generally positive, though not without criticism, it reflects the theme of the work, “He shall be his own biographer,” but Randolph added his own literary style.

The Document Volumes

Gilbert, Martin and Arnn, Larry P., eds. The Churchill Documents, Vol. 23, Never Flinch, Never Weary, October 1951-January 1965. Hillsdale, Mich., Hillsdale College Press, 2019, 2488 pp. ✸ Reviewed by Hillsdale: This final volume covers the advent of the Cold War, Britain’s relations with the United States and Europe, the maintenance and dissolution of Empire. Many documents deal with domestic issues and so with Britain’s economic predicament. The issues of state he dealt with as prime minister frequently intersected with Churchill’s huge social network and private life. Unique among his contemporaries, his politics, economics, social and private life greatly overlapped, so they are not easily separated. Never Flinch, Never Weary bears testimony to Churchill’s fertile mind, social inclinations and action-driven personality. —Klaus Larres

1983

Manchester, William. The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, vol. 1: Visions of Glory 1874-1932. Boston and Toronto: Little Brown, 1983, 974 pp. Churchill: The Last Lion. London: Michael Joseph. Translations: Italian, French. Many editions since. ✸ Manchester’s lyrical biography makes for fabulous reading; the prologue accurately captures the vanished world into which Churchill was born better than any other work. Given short shrift by academics, the author was accused of hagiography (though he is sometimes quite critical), purple prose and mistakes large and small. Manchester has nonetheless brought more people to Churchill than any writer save Martin Gilbert.

1994

Gilbert, Martin. In Search of Churchill: A Historian’s Journey. London: HarperCollins, 338 pp. New York: John Wiley, 1994, 416 pp. Reprints, e-book. ✸ The official biographer’s fascinating adventures and interviews in the process of compiling the official biography. This is also Gilbert’s answer to critics over the years who accused him of being uncritical about a man others have spent years denouncing. Having examined more evidence than anyone in writing the official biography, Gilbert states that he came away even more impressed with Churchill’s intellect, generosity, statesmanship and humanity. Cited by many as the best Churchill book of 1994, and especially useful to the scholar interested in primary source material.

2006

Cohen, Ronald I. Bibliography of the Writings of Sir Winston Churchill. London: Thoemmes; New York: Continuum, 3 vols., 2006, 2184 pp. ✸ The product of thirty years’ research and collecting, this is the ultimate and ever-standard bibliography of Churchill’s writings, encompassing Churchill’s published books, pamphlets, leaflets, contributions, articles, speeches, letters, memoranda and statements, together with the circumstances of publication. Its publication put all previous attempts at bibliography in the shade, and it will forever be consulted as the “last word.” —RML

2010

Leaming, Barbara. Churchill Defiant: Fighting On: 1945-1955. New York: HarperCollins, 2010, 368 pp. Reprints, e-book. ✸ The personal dimension helps make this the most important survey of Churchill’s last active decade. Valuable to those new to Churchill because of its keen insight into his lifelong defiance of long odds and formidable adversaries. No footnotes and lots of speech paraphrasing allow Leaming to get to the kernel of WSC in those years, and so to his final goal, peace. —RML

2015

Arnn, Larry P. Churchill’s Trial: Winston Churchill and the Survival of Free Government. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2015, 240 pp. Reprints, e-book. ✸ Reviewed by Hillsdale: Churchill studies can reveal important lessons that remain powerfully relevant for the leaders and citizens of free societies. This notion is itself founded on the belief that though the threats to civilization may have altered since Churchill’s day, there is consistency between his challenges and ours—that he is a good guide to follow in the cause of defending freedom. So such a belief must lie behind any conception of history as providing guidance. If these commonalities do not exist, neither Churchill’s story, nor history in general, has anything to say to us now. A unique and important work on Churchill’s political thought. —Justin D. Lyons

2018

Roberts, Andrew. Churchill: Walking with Destiny. London: Allen Lane; New York: Viking, 2018, 1152 pp. Reprints, softbound, e-book. ✸ Reviewed by Hillsdale; for a second Hillsdale review click here): What can justify another big biography? New sources, for one thing. But the real justification is that this book is excellent—the best biography since Sir Martin Gilbert’s Churchill: A Life (1991). It has the adventure, energy, and incessant movement that Churchill produced. It is witty, fluent, and precise, in rhythm with the material. We gallop across decades and through the largest episodes in history. It is devoid of the smug second guessing that we all may commit. It is the product of a massive and faithful labor. Roberts tells the story of a wonderful life with accuracy and dash, with richness and comprehension. It raises all the questions and provides the material for their contemplation. —Larry P. Arnn

2020

Vale, J. Allister and Scadding, John W. Winston Churchill’s Illnesses 1886-1965. Barnsley, Yorks.: Frontline, 2020, 522 pp. ✸ Reviewed by Hillsdale: A thoroughgoing forensic examination of Churchill’s maladies from boyhood to old age. As a result we have the standard work in this field. Combines professional commentary with layman’s terms, so no reader will be lost in medical technology. Also provides names of diseases and drugs as well as people and places, and the images include many physicians mentioned. No serious Churchill scholar will now be able routinely to quote Lord Moran (1966) without acknowledging the decisive caveats introduced by this new work. —Antoine Capet

“We go back a long way,” Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn recently reminded me. “I knew Dal Newfield.” He realized that would invoke a fond memory. A few still remember the man responsible for where some of us are today.

Dalton Newfield was a Sacramento army veteran who had admired Winston Churchill since he saw him live during World War II. In 1970, I shrank away from Finest Hour after the first eleven issues. I was clearing the decks for an automotive writing career in New York City. Dal rescued the thin little newsletter of the “Winston S. Churchill Study Unit” and produced 22 issues. His first cover was memorable: a replica of The Times front page for 30 November 1874. In the upper left corner, each copy was marked with a hand-applied red dot. It was an announcement: “Born at Blenheim Palace, of The Lady Randolph Churchill, a son….”

The Newfield era

Dal’s increasingly interesting editions extended far beyond the original scope of stamp collecting. We never had more than $300 in the bank, but he found a friendly printer. Here he begged or borrowed what we then called “half-tones”—photos to liven it up. We couldn’t afford typesetting, so he typed each issue on a carbon ribbon Selectric. Running out of space, he’d continue articles up and down the margins. It was a happy, eclectic little news-sheet, brimming with Churchilliana.

“Look,” Newfield said early on: “Stamps are fine, but they don’t do justice to this grand character. We need a broader approach. You came up aces with the title Finest Hour. Now let’s rename the organization.” I suggested “International Churchill Society.” It seemed like a good idea at the time.

High among Dal’s priorities was Sir Winston’s deep literary heritage. He produced many articles about Churchill’s books and books about him, especially Winston S.. Churchill, the Official Biography. (Actually there was nothing “official” about it, except that it was based on Churchill’s archive. But the biographers were never asked to follow a particular line.) Martin Gilbert had just succeeded first author Randolph Churchill, who had published seven volumes. I invited Randolph to be our first honorary member, two weeks before he died in 1968. Martin, a stamp collector, remembered when my letter arrived.

Books, books and more books

Books were Newfield’s forte—he was the world’s first Churchill specialist bookseller. He worked to get member discounts on Martin’s first volume, The Challenge of War 1914-1916. By 1975, when Martin published the “companion” or document volumes to that work, the book business was taking all Dal’s spare time. He gave up editing, and Finest Hour vanished. Meanwhile he was selling me books and reigniting my Churchill compulsion. In 1981 he slyly suggested: “You’re freelancing now, so why not revive FH? There’s enough in the treasury for one issue, and I have a pretty good promo list.”

He sure did. One of our first subscribers was U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. We returned his check and made him an honorary member. “That way,” Dal said, “he can never get away.” I later came to know this fine man personally. He was the first of many introductions to “the good and the great” through the magic name of Churchill.

Alas only a few months later, Dalton Newfield suddenly died, leaving his many friends bereft. One of those was a scholar named Larry Arnn. They had met in the late 1970s, when Larry was Martin Gilbert’s chief of research, while studying at the London School of Economics and Oxford.

The Official Biography falters

Larry had joined Martin in 1977, after publication of biographic Volume 5, Prophet of Truth 1922-1939. Martin and his staff developed the document volumes for Prophet of Truth. Working with them was a Lancashire girl named Penny, the future Mrs. Arnn. They left for the States in 1980, and the third and last of the Volume 5 documents did not appear until 1983.

Martin and his team were fastidious, and would not be rushed. They interviewed anyone who knew Churchill, vacuuming every archive and resource. Originally Randolph had envisioned five volumes of biography and ten of documents, but the job was exploding. At 1106 pages, Prophet of Truth was nearly double the size of the first narrative volume. At 4592 pages, its accompanying documents nearly quadrupled the page count for the “companions” to Volume I.

Martin Gilbert was not independently wealthy, his pay for the biography low. Often he would set it aside to take on other assignments. Like Sir Winston himself, he was “living from mouth to hand.” The Official Biography was repeatedly delayed. The last three narrative volumes were done by 1988, but of their accompanying documents, there was no sign. After the last biographic volume the publishers, Heinemann and Houghton Mifflin, lost interest. They saw the job as essentially finished; the slow-selling documents were unprofitable. Yet from a scholarly standpoint, they were the heart of the work.

Stepping up

Here was where the seeds Dal Newfield planted took root. Born among two-dozen stamp collectors, the Churchill Society by the mid-1980s had acquired some serious visionaries. “If you want to do something lasting,” they said, “find a way to publish things commercial publishers won’t touch.” In 1986, launching the Churchill Literary Foundation, we set out to do just that.

It began small, with a booklet by the aforesaid Caspar Weinberger. Through it we raised support for more. By 1992 we’d produced ten specialized publications including Churchill’s The Dream and his Chartwell Bulletins, even a series of fifty-year calendars (1940-90, and so on). The last special publication, The Churchill Companion (2013) brought the total to twenty-four. The Foundation (part of the Churchill Centre after 1995) worked with publishers to reissue long out-of-print books. In short order we saw the Malakand Field Force, Savrola, The Boer War, the six-volume World Crisis. I even published one myself—India, Churchill’s rare book of speeches. But the question remained: how to finish the Official Biography?

Wendy Reves and the War Papers

Fortune then smiled in the person of Wendy Reves, vivacious widow of Emery Reves, Sir Winston’s literary agent. The devoted Reveses had hosted WSC in his old age at their Riviera villa, “La Pausa.” Emery died in 1981 but Wendy still lived there. I met Wendy at the Hotel Pierre in New York in 1986. There was no mistaking the former fashion model: smartly dressed, dark glasses, trademark headband. She became an enthusiastic supporter.

In 1990 we began seeking to restart the document volumes. They had ended in 1939—tantalizingly, the eve of Churchill’s finest hour. To cover 1940-65, Martin Gilbert said, would require at least six more. We passed his thoughts to Wendy—she always referred to him in French as Monsieur Geel-bear. “How much will it take?” she asked. We told her. She said, “When can he start?”

Thus followed three huge document volumes, The Churchill War Papers, covering September 1939 through December 1941. The publisher was W.W. Norton. Heinemann in London tagged along, popping their logo on the spine and selling their version at twice Norton’s price, pleasing nobody.

Martin’s output, vast and wonderful as it was, didn’t please the sponsor. The first two volumes arrived in quick succession in 1993 and 1994. Then Martin became sidetracked again, and we didn’t see the third until 2000. Wendy had faithfully kept her bargain, paying the bills for each (mainly secretarial and research staff). But the six-year delay exhausted her patience. “I’m done,” she declared. I recall that Martin himself didn’t greatly object. I think he was fairly exhausted, too.

Larry Arnn raises the Tattered Flag

Now what? Unbeknown to us, another champion was in the field who would finish the job. Happily, it was somebody we knew and trusted, a man who has never let us down. So it was that Larry Arnn, by now president of Hillsdale College in Michigan, set out to finish the longest biography in history. In so doing, as Churchill said, he raised “a tattered flag found lying on a stricken field.”

The task ahead was daunting. Raw material for the remaining document volumes was mainly assembled. It comprised thousands of papers covering 1943-65. Indeed Martin Gilbert had compiled a “wodge” of documents for almost every day of Churchill’s life. But all had to be edited into a coherent whole. Sources needed to be checked, cross-references listed, rejects weeded out, additions pondered, facts verified. A comprehensive index and footnotes were needed, including thumbnail biographies of every person mentioned. And Martin wasn’t getting any younger.

The rescue

So Hillsdale College arranged to buy the Gilbert Papers, to work out rights and permissions, and to publish the volumes—not with an outside publisher but through Hillsdale College Press. Martin Gilbert would remain editor, with this proviso: “If for any reason you are unable to finish it, we will.”

Dave Turrell, my former associate editor at FH, recalled the  “heart-stopping moment” when we realized Dr. Arnn’s full plan: “Not only would Hillsdale produce the remaining seven documents of the Official Biography. It would first go back to the beginning, reissuing all twenty-four previous volumes in a uniform edition, modestly priced within everyone’s pocketbook. Those of us waiting for new material would have to wait awhile longer. It was frustrating, but in hindsight it was the correct decision. It incidentally broke the hearts of secondhand booksellers around the world. The Churchill Documents 11-13 sold for $60 each, compared to thousands for the old Companion Volumes to Volume 5.

In 2006, forty years after they had first appeared, Hillsdale reissued Volume 1, Youth 1874-1896 and its two volumes of documents. It wasn’t until 2013 that new ground opened with The Churchill Documents Volume 17, Testing Times, 1942. Dear Martin Gilbert died in 2015, leaving the majestic legacy of eighty-eight books on Churchill, Jewish and 20th Century history and a global following. He lived to see all his past volumes back in print, and one new volume too. Testing Times bore his name as editor. All six volumes published since his death carry his and Larry Arnn’s bylines.

“History lived and made in real time”

Careful attention to detail makes these books invaluable. Start with pagination: each reprint carries the same page numbers as the originals. So citations are always the same, regardless of edition. The scholarly endnotes were largely the work of Hillsdale’s Churchill Fellows: students engaged in Churchill classes or research, under the supervision of Dr. Arnn and Research Director Soren Geiger. My own role was to read the manuscripts, querying points, providing new references, or possible additional material.

The indexing is exhaustive, far deeper than the earlier volumes. Indexer Sheila Ryan won the American Society for Indexing Excellence 2019 Award for The Churchill Documents 21, The Shadows of Victory, January-July 1945. E-book versions of the eight narrative volumes are available, and electronic document volumes are forthcoming.

A expanding endeavor

Scores of scholars have testified to the historic value of all this labor. “We will never again have so thorough a record of any statesman’s decision-making, so vast and consequential,” wrote Eliot Cohen. “Accompanied by a full apparatus of footnotes identifying persons mentioned, correcting dates, and clarifying obscure references, the document volumes contain an extraordinary array of materials: official memoranda, correspondence, speeches, diary entries by friends (and enemies), reports, instructions, recollections, and even dinner lists.” They also have a use beyond research, Dave Turrell added: “They can also be read in their own right. Not only do they tell their own story, but the voices we eavesdrop on increase our understanding. They read as a radio play, where we get to hear history being lived and made in real-time.”

Publishing the world’s longest biography would be enough for many, but it didn’t stop there. Simultaneously, Dr. Arnn started the Hillsdale College Churchill Project to exploit and apply the lessons of Churchill’s rich, inspiring life. “The study of statesmanship,” he says, “is central to Hillsdale’s mission, which includes cultivating the moral and spiritual values. The classics teach that we can best understand the art of statesmanship by studying those who have a reputation for it. One sees prudence, the virtue of the statesman, most clearly through the words and actions of those who pursued justice in the midst of the obstacles and necessities of political life.”

End of the beginning

What better model for teaching statesmanship? “Churchill’s career was long, the facts so well recorded, the quality so very high. It spanned the largest wars, the greatest depression, the worst tyrannies, and the most rapid advancement of technology and therefore of human power. As he faced these crises, Churchill wrote with profuse detail and with great ability about his doings, thereby leaving one of the richest records of human undertaking.” Its legal structure ensures that the Churchill Project will continue long after all of us are gone. For that reason I joined the team in 2014. Working with Hillsdale’s bright young students is a privilege and an inspiration. A center for Churchill Studies is something I dreamed about for 40 years. Dalton Newfield dreamed about it too.

“A right understanding of Churchill’s record” requires deep resources. Along with the Gilbert Papers, the Project acquired the Ronald Cohen collection of Churchill essays, forewords and contributions—Sections “B” through “G” of his Bibliography. Ron himself donated his collection of recordings, the authentic voice of Churchill, now being digitalized for online access. The College has received or is in line for other collections of Churchill books, artifacts and papers, my own included.

These materials combine to teach statesmanship through the best teacher of modern times. The method includes national conferences, symposia, scholarships, online courses and an endowed faculty chair. A steady flow of new publications will follow. One is an electronic version of the Cohen Bibliography. We hope to do more publishing of original texts, obscure writings not seen since first publication. Most recently, the Project marshaled a battery of scholars to defend Churchill’s good name from an outburst of defamation. Suitable, I think, for a college whose motto reads, “Pursuing truth and defending liberty since 1844.”

“Ambassadors of Providence”

Through these endeavors, Hillsdale is building an institution for Churchill research, scholarship, and learning. You may also subscribe, with 60,000 others, to bulletins on new articles, research papers and video resources, and announcements of free online courses and events. For details visit winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu or email this writer.

The official biography is done, the work goes on, the subject is evergreen. “Great men are the ambassadors of Providence sent to reveal to their fellow men their unknown selves,” said President Calvin Coolidge. “To them is granted the power to call forth the best there is in those who come under their influence.” Here in Winston Churchill, we have the story of one man, it is true; but a man who shows us what we are, all of us, at our best.