Author Description

Winston Churchill's active political career spanned fifty-five years, from his entry into the House of Commons in 1900 until his retirement form the Premiership in April, 1955. It was a career of remarkable vicissitudes of fortune; and no period is of greater interest than the twenty years between the two World Wars, during which Churchill returned to the Conservative party that he had left in 1904, received high office in a Conservative Government, and then broke with its leaders. From 1929 until September 1939, he held no political office, and his career seemed to have ended in total failure. The Second World War brought him back to office and then, in May 1940, to the Premiership and to the opportunity to become Britain's greatest war leader since the elder Pitt.In this study, Robert Rhodes James has asked the question of why Churchill was so discredited and ignored in the 1920s and 1930s. Rejecting the simple answer that Churchill was held down by lesser men who failed to see his genius, he has analyzed the causes of Churchill's failure and has sought them in Churchill's own personality and his contribution to contemporary politics. Mr. Rhodes James has described this as "an interim study," for he considers that the time has not yet come for a complete and measured estimate of Churchill's extraordinary personality and career. But in this "interim study," he has drawn attention to aspects of that personality and career that have hitherto been largely overlooked by biographers and historians, and he has looked beyond the Churchill of 1940 to explain why and how Churchill's career between the wars provides "a study in failure."