Finest Years

Finest Years examines Winston Churchill’s performance as Britain’s wartime prime minister from 1940 to 1945. Max Hastings follows Churchill through the crisis of France’s defeat, the Battle of Britain, the alliance with the United States and Soviet Union and the long process by which Britain moved from survival to participation in the defeat of Germany.

The book is admiring of Churchill’s political courage and ability to embody national resistance but critical of some military judgements, interventions and expectations about British forces. Hastings places the prime minister within the machinery of wartime government and command rather than treating him solely as an inspirational speaker. It is nonfiction biography and military-political history.