Through the documents in these pages, Martin Gilbert takes the reader on a fascinating journey, covering a wide range of domestic and international problems. Churchill’s vivid personality is evident as each controversy unfolds—traced through private letters and secret Cabinet records, Martin Gilbert’s explanatory notes, never obtrusive, illuminate both the individuals and the events of twenty-one dramatic months. Covering every aspect of Churchill’s life when he was successively Minister of Munitions and Secretary of State for War, Martin Gilbert has also drawn material from the Churchill Papers, now at Churchill College, Cambridge, and from many other archival sources, both private and public. For Churchill, the period was dominated by the early problems of peace, the continued intervention in Russia against the Bolsheviks, the Russo-Polish war, terrorism and the search for conciliation in Ireland, revolt in Iraq, Britain’s Palestine Mandate, and the future of Britain’s position in the Middle East. His wife Clementine is an ever-present influence.
