Mirrors of Greatness, David Reynolds
Mirrors of Greatness, David Reynolds
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Mirrors of Greatness
Churchill and the Leaders Who Shaped Him

Author: David Reynolds

Narrator: Ethan Kelly

Unabridged: 17 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 01/23/2024


Synopsis

A new biography of Winston Churchill, revealing how his relationships with the other great figures of his age shaped his own triumphs and failures as a leader

Winston Churchill remains one of the most revered figures of the twentieth century, his name a byword for courageous leadership. But the Churchill we know today is a mixture of history and myth, authored by the man himself. In Mirrors of Greatness, prizewinning historian David Reynolds reevaluates Churchill’s life by viewing it through the eyes of his allies and adversaries, even his own family, revealing Churchill’s lifelong struggle to overcome his political failures and his evolving grasp of what “greatness” truly entailed.  
 
Through his dealings with Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain, we follow Churchill’s triumphant campaign against Nazi Germany. But we also see a Churchill whose misjudgments of allies and rivals like Roosevelt, Stalin, Gandhi, and Clement Attlee blinded him to the British Empire’s waning dominance on the world stage and to the rising popularity of a postimperial, socialist vision of Great Britain at home.  
 
Magisterial and incisive, Mirrors of Greatness affords Churchill his due as a figure of world-historical importance and deepens our understanding of his legend by uncovering the ways his greatest contemporaries helped make him the man he was, for good and for ill.

About David Reynolds

David Reynolds is professor of international history at Cambridge University and the author of eleven books.


Reviews

Goodreads review by GrahamReads on August 02, 2024

Just finished: "Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the Leaders Who Shaped Him" By David Reynolds New York: Basic Books, 2024 (originally published in the UK by William Collins in 2023). An unconventional biography about Churchill that looks at his relationships and interactions with others. Others prof......more

Goodreads review by Joseph on December 01, 2024

A fresh perspective on one of the 20th century's leading luminaries, this book was well thought out and very enjoyable. Each chapter relates the subject's relationship to Churchill and their interaction throughout his political career. We learn more about not only Churchill himself, but also the per......more

Goodreads review by Urey on February 24, 2024

You might think that given the vast accumulation of books about Churchill, there could not be much more to say that would be fresh, or interesting. You would be wrong. Reynolds has taken a look at Churchill’s life, his career, as reflected by his interactions with individual, important figures of hi......more

Goodreads review by Mike on November 13, 2024

A great, very dense and entertaining read on Churchill's contemporaries — with a good overview of the world events, his personal comments on matters, and more. Possibly the most surprising figure to be included for people not deep into Winston's lore is his wife, and the tragic history of their marr......more