It may seem odd," says Piers Brendon, "to write "a brief life" about someone who enjoyed such a long life". But so many heavy books have been devoted to Winston Churchill that the man is in danger of being buried beneath his monuments. This biography resurrects him in brilliant form. It offers the general reader what is amazingly not otherwise available – a vivid, complete but miniature portrait of Churchill, set against the background of his career.

          That career was a saga of heroism and adventure unparalleled in modern times. Churchill was famous as a soldier and war correspondent in Queen Victoria’s reign. As a young Edwardian politician he helped to lay the foundations of the Admiralty in 1914. Despite the Dardanelles disaster, for which Churchill had been held responsible, Lloyd George restored him to high office. As Chancellor of the Exchequer Churchill towered over Baldwin’s cabinet. He was a voice crying in the wilderness that Britain should rearm during the 1930s. He saved his country and, as Britain’s last leader of global stature, led it to victory in the Second World War. He resigned as Queen Elizabeth’s first premier, full of years and honour, to become "an ancient monument in his own life-time".

          The outline is well known, but Brendon enriches his story with a wealth of unfamiliar detail. Churchill himself emerges as one of the most colourful and fascinating characters in this or any other age. He was a vibrant being with talents amounting to genius and faults amounting to infirmities, an often loveable, sometimes unlovely, but always great man.

         Piers Brendon is one of the most talented historical biographers and this promises to be his most popular book so far. Never before has his subject been brought to life with such elegance, economy and wit.