I found this book pretty well-written and gripping, which I think says something about Larson’s abilities more than the subject matter. After all, we all know how the main plot ends. It’s pretty interesting to get a front row seat and a fairly intimate picture of the rather momentous events portrayed. That said, some of these details do verge on the tedious - I’m not sure I care that much about the romantic foibles of Churchill’s children for instance, but there’s quite a lot of emphasis on that story line. The book does tend to lean towards hagiography, which is a little irresponsible. Churchill, for all his accomplishments in World War Two, had no shortage of flaws either. He was a virulent white supremacist and advocated atrocious behavior during the war of Irish independence, and may have exacerbated a terrible famine in India during World War Two. This book has a tight focus on the first year of his tenure as prime minister, and so a lot of these faults are conveniently out of view - but there is no doubt that the narrative as a whole paints a rather one-sided view of the man. On the other side, it’s interesting that Larson understates Churchill’s great speeches, which are arguably the things which have most staying power today; he mentions them here and there, but if anything deflates their importance quite a bit. Perhaps that’s a reasonable depiction of the impact that those speeches had at the time, it’s a bit difficult to say.

I’m not a huge fan of biographies of this sort, but I will certainly credit Larson for rather well-written prose - more than a few times I found it difficult to put the book down!