Mirrors of Greatness

“A fresh, fast-paced and bracing look at Churchill...Mr. Reynolds provides a freshly penetrating look into the many qualities of Churchill’s extraordinary mind. The monument of the man now breathes in full.”

“[Reynolds] succeeds in spades with a book that is both readable and informative…Ultimately, Mirrors of Greatness illuminates why there is such an enduring fascination with Churchill.”

“Reynolds has skillfully and cleverly constructed a biography of Churchill reflected in the lives of his contemporaries…a revealing and complicated portrait.”

“By looking at those who influenced Churchill, Reynolds sheds some light on his achievements and failures.”

“He’s one of the iconic leaders of the modern world. Who inspired Churchill as he rose to the pinnacle of power? And how did he himself seek to mold how history would view him? No one is better placed to address these deceptively simple questions than David Reynolds, and he succeeds splendidly in this magnificent book. A fresh and captivating study of the nature and crux of political leadership.”
 

“Winston Churchill was unique—but that does not mean that he was alone. David Reynolds’ insightful work illuminates much about those towering figures who shaped not only the politics of the first half of the twentieth century, but also helped form the man who was, in the end, the greatest of them all.”
 

“A fresh take on the familiar subject of Churchill’s greatness, reading his many triumphs and often spectacular failures through the lens of his relationships with other leaders of his time. What emerges is an unvarnished and uncensored Churchill, whose British pride was not without prejudice, whose unparalleled vision and eloquence did not preclude callous, crude, and disparaging remarks about rivals which may take today’s readers aback. This is an honest and unsparing appraisal of one of the leading figures of modern history.”
 

“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.”
 

“David Reynolds has long been the dean of Churchill studies, constantly setting and resetting the agenda on Britain’s wartime prime minister. Just when we wondered if there was much left for anyone to say about this titanic but endlessly discussed figure, Reynolds pulls another rabbit out of his hat with a magisterial book on Churchill and his contemporaries. It’s a Churchill biography with a twist—an incisive portrait of a generation as well as the man. The result is an elegant feat of scholarship, imagination, and storytelling from this most brilliant of historians.”