A TELEGRAPH BEST HISTORY BOOK OF 2023 'A highly imaginative and thought-provoking way of
exploring the personality of a man who like him or loathe him left an indelible mark on our
age' ADAM ZAMOYSKI Winston Churchill followed his own star. He yearned to be 'great' to gain
historical immortality. And he did so through deeds and words: his actions as a soldier and
politician gilded by his writings as a journalist and historian. But Churchill's path to
greatness was also defined by the leaders he encountered along the way - friends and foes at
home and abroad. Men of power such as Hitler and Mussolini Roosevelt and Stalin David Lloyd
George Neville Chamberlain and Charles de Gaulle. And the haunting presence of the adored
father who had seen nothing of merit in his troublesome son. In these men Churchill discerned
greatness or its absence in ways that influenced his own career. This book includes some whom
Churchill would not have deemed 'great' but who - in our own day - offer alternative mirrors
of what that word might mean. Mahatma Gandhi who infuriated Churchill by exploiting the power
of powerlessness. Clement Attlee whose heretical vision of 'Great Britain' was socialist and
post-imperial. And his darling Clementine channelling her 'pinko' sentiments to become
Winston's essential helpmate and most devoted critic. Mirrors of Greatness offers vivid new
perspectives on Churchill's life and work showing how this unique man - with dazzling gifts
and jagged flaws - learned from his 'great contemporaries' and what they saw in him.
