Young Statesman, 1901-1914

Volume 2 of this magisterial biography takes the story of Churchill from his election as Tory MP for Oldham to the outbreak of the Great War. When he took his seat on 14 February 1901, he was poised on the edge of a career whose Shakespearean scope would take him through success and denigration and years in the political wilderness when wilderness. This volume shows the forging of the mainspring that drove him throughout his career when, firm in his own beliefs, he refused to compromise.