Saviour of the world

Churchill must be the most written-about figure in public life since Napoleon Bonaparte (a subject, incidentally, to which Andrew Roberts has already contributed a substantial and prize-winning biography). As the publisher obligingly warns us, there have been over 1,000 previous studies of Churchill’s life, including some dross, but many works of serious importance. To add anything worthwhile to this mountain requires that the author should be determined, courageous and have something new to say. No one has ever doubted Roberts’s determination and courage; the question remains whether he has anything new to say.

Rather to my surprise, the answer has to be ‘yes’. Roberts has been assiduous in his research. His list of acknowledgements is formidably long, even extending to Janina Gruhner, of Zurich University, who showed him ‘the podium Churchill spoke from in 1946’. He does not seem, however, to have had exclusive access to any new source of great importance.