We have here, despite the title, not a new reference book about Winston Churchill but a collection of essays by nineteen different authors “that sets out to look at Churchill in the round, and not just his wartime leadership”—“to show,” according to editor Allen Packwood, “the interrelationship between Churchill the prime minister and what came before and after.”
“There has been an attempt to weaponize Churchill in the current culture wars,” writes Lord Boateng in his introduction, “that does neither him nor the cause of reasoned and respectful argument any justice.” While there have been collections such as this before and will be many more in the future, this latest entry is, as Boateng states, “even more welcome, not just for its scholarship and erudition but for its sense of balance and openness.”
The essays begin with an overview of the present “state of Churchill’s 197) and Peter Clarke on Churchill’s profession as a writer. Packwood himself takes on the subject of “Churchill as War Leader,” while Warren Dockter examines Churchill’s use of military intelligence.
