Author Description

The second volume in this "magisterial achievement" of political biography chronicles Churchill's days in Parliament up to the outbreak of WWI (Andrew Roberts, historian and author of The Storm of War).   Written by Winston S. Churchill's son, Randolph, the second volume of this authoritative, eight-volume biography begins as Churchill takes his seat in the House of Commons at the age of twenty-six. An independent spirit and rebel, his maiden speech received cheers from the Leader of the Opposition.   In the years leading up to the Great War, Churchill was at the center of British political life. At the Home Office, he introduced substantial prison reforms and took a lead in curbing the powers of the House of Lords. At the Admiralty, beginning in 1911, he helped build the Royal Navy into a formidable fighting force. He learned to fly, and founded the Royal Naval Air Service. He was also active in attempts to resolve the Irish Question and to prevent civil war in Ireland.   In 1914, as war in Europe loomed, Churchill wrote to his wife from the Admiralty: "The preparations have a hideous fascination for me . . . yet I would do my best for peace, and nothing would induce me wrongfully to strike the blow. I cannot feel that we in this island are in any serious degree responsible for the wave of madness which has swept the mind of Christendom."   When war came, the fleet was ready. It was one of Churchill's greatest early achievements.   "A milestone, a monument . . . rightly regarded as the most comprehensive life ever written of any age." —Andrew Roberts, historian and author of The Storm of War   "The most scholarly study of Churchill in war and peace ever written." —Herbert Mitgang, The New York Times