Why two more Churchill biographies? Geoffrey Best reckons there are fifty or a hundred out there already. Two good reasons to want to add to them would be the unearthing of new evidence or a radically different interpretation. Roy Jenkins says he is not 'a great partisan of the "revelatory" biography', and claims that for Churchill nearly all the 'facts' are known in any case. One of Best's motives for writing his book is to scotch some of the wilder recent interpretations he believes have obscured an older and safer wisdom. Neither author professes originality. So why did they bother adding to the list?

LRB 14 January 2002 | PDF Download