His Finest Hour

April 11, 2011
Throughout his 60 years in politics, Winston Churchill played an enormous part in the direction of the British Empire, even though his career, mirroring his manic depression, ran fantastically high and low. In 1933, his foresight in recognizing the danger of Nazi Germany led him to push the English to bulk up their military forces. By refusing to capitulate to cries for surrender, he saved Britain and the Western world from Nazism. Catherwood gives us Winston Churchill, "warts and all," without the dry, miniscule details of most history texts, delivering an absorbing tale focused on the incredible survival of England through the desperate days of 1940-41. The book flows much like a novel, appropriate since the life it chronicles was extraordinarily novel. To ensure Churchill's place in history, Catherwood covers his heroic exploits in India, the Sudan, the Boer War, and WWI, and intersperses them with his roller coaster political life, which began as an MP in 1900, saw cabinet posts to First Lord of the Admiralty, Secretary of State for War and Air, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and finally, Prime Ministerâtwice.