Franklin & Winston

If you are looking for an enjoyable read, Franklin and Winston (here) by Jon Meacham will, I think, satisfy what you are looking for. I have, through reading this book, come to admire the intellect and wit of Winston Churchill (two things I wish I had). Here are two quotes from the book which show both quite clearly:

"The Labourite Clement Attlee was at the urinal in the men's room of the House of Commons. Churchill came in and, seeing Attlee, moved away. 'Feeling standoffish today, are we, Winston?' Churchill replied: 'That's right. Every time you see something big, you want to nationalize it."

"On June 18, Churchill briefed the nation on the crisis it now faced without the French in the fight.

Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free, and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands; but if we fail then the whole world, including the United States, and all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more prolonged, by the lights of a perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Commonwealth and Empire lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'"