No human being alive today knows Britain’s legendary lion of a Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, better than Martin Gilbert.
No account of Churchill’s life is more audaciously complete than Gilbert’s massive project called simply ‘A Life’.
And what a life! Churchill famously failed at most things to which he put his hand until he became his besieged country’s prime minister, just in time to succeed singularly in clawing a future out of nothing but isolation and darkness.
From childhood, through his adventures in the Boer War and on into a political career that was distinguished only by the alleged spectacular failure of the Dardanelles, Gilbert details a doomed life in astonishing detail. Then, the war, and it seemed that all of Churchill’s life had prepared him for this dread moment, which Britain somehow alchemized into an exhausted victory.
Gilbert is an unashamed practioner of ‘great men’ historiography. It would be hard for a Churchill scholar to be otherwise, given its immense subject. Gilbert is the dean and monarch of Churchill scholarship, a point of reference to whom all others who would write on the topic necessarily allude.
If your attention span for things Churchillian is short, there are slimmer works wherein you might begin your exploration of the man, for the author’s work is profoundly thorough. This reviewer found it a fine place to begin. Wherever your path begins, by all means end up here.
Canter Bridge 
31 August 2007
Dear David Baer,
I am disappointed with your last sentence.
After so much (enormously appreciated) praise, could you not have enccouraged your readers to start their reading with my CHURCHILL A LIFE.
“wise to begin .. elsewhere” is a real downer for my book.
Yours,
Martin Gilbert
Dear Sir Martin,
Many thanks for your response to my review.
As the gist of my words indicates and as your comment implicitly recognizes, the outcome most remote from my intention would be to discourage any potential reader from taking up your LIFE. Nevertheless, I stand by my intuition that the interest level of some will be best served by starting with something of a lighter weight and then ending up with your classic work.
In the light of your comments, the rereading of my review that they provoke, and my desire effectively to direct as many readers as possible to CHURCHILL, A LIFE, I have amended my final sentence in the hope that clarity will be achieved.
Thank you and all best,
David