The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill

Mr Manchester's work has such control over a huge and moving narrative, such illumination of character, and such a steady acceptance of the contrariness of a remarkable man seen in the round, that he can claim the considerable achievement of having assembled enough powerful evidence to support Isaiah Berlin's judgment of Churchill as 'the largest human being of our time' . . . (Manchester's) mastery of his huge file of research enables him to introduce many new and startling things . . . he takes nothing for granted.Alastair Cooke

His subject leaves us dizzy with the breadth of his early exploits, be they escaping from a Boer prison in 1899 or inventing the army tank . . . Churchill himself, for whom modesty was a foreign word, would have appreciated Manchester's friendly tone - and his latest biographer's ambitiousness in tackling once again such a bedazzling subject.Newsweek

Unlike previous Churchill biographies, The Last Lion is especially rich in historical and social contexts . . . This biography has its own momentum: the flow of power moving relentlessly toward confrontation and combat.Time