CHURCHILL’S HOUR by Michael Dobbs

Note: I am not a paid reviewer, and I have purchased this title to read for my personal enjoyment.

This fictionalized account of the ‘finest hour’ of one of history’s most studied non-fiction lives during the period from the Blitz of London to Pearl Harbor was written by an insider who once operated at the highest level of conservative British politics and seems well-suited to portray Churchill’s many challenges. The read gives insights on WSC the man himself and the perilous political sea he navigated both at home among his cabinet and MP rivals, and in trying to bring FDR into a military alliance. The great man becomes real through his imagined words and deeds: at various times imperious, irritable, excessive, sentimental, and wise. An unsparing portrait of Churchill family infidelities, excesses and weaknesses shows us what WSC had to contend with as he draws USA ambassadors Winant and Harriman into his efforts to inch FDR along towards England’s aid. WSC is given a very human element as he turns to his trusted man-servant and young daughter-in-law, who brings to mind his late mother, as loyal ‘sanity checks’ that influence his decision making in arguably the highest stakes political period in all of history. Some imagined scenes are controversial to be sure (e.g. WSC keeps prior knowledge of Pearl Harbor from the Americans; WSC uses and discards a spying young French housekeeper in a one-man disinformation campaign), but on the whole, the great man comes alive with plausibility and humanity.