A TELEGRAPH BEST HISTORY BOOK OF 2023'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' ADAM ZAMOYSKI Winston Churchill followed his own star. He yearned to be aEUR?greataEUR (TM), to gain historical immortality. And he did so through deeds and words: his actions as a soldier and politician, gilded by his writings as a journalist and historian.

But ChurchillaEUR (TM)s path to greatness was also defined by the leaders he encountered along the way aEUR" friends and foes, at home and abroad. Men of power such as Hitler and Mussolini, Roosevelt and Stalin, David Lloyd George, Neville Chamberlain and Charles de Gaulle. And the haunting presence of the adored father who had seen nothing of merit in his troublesome son. In these men Churchill discerned greatness, or its absence, in ways that influenced his own career.

This book includes some whom Churchill would not have deemed aEUR?greataEUR (TM), but who aEUR" in our own day aEUR" offer alternative mirrors of what that word might mean. Mahatma Gandhi, who infuriated Churchill by exploiting the power of powerlessness. Clement Attlee, whose heretical vision of aEUR?Great BritainaEUR (TM) was socialist and post-imperial. And his darling Clementine, channelling her aEUR?pinkoaEUR (TM) sentiments to become WinstonaEUR (TM)s essential helpmate and most devoted critic.

Mirrors of Greatness offers vivid new perspectives on ChurchillaEUR (TM)s life and work, showing how this unique man aEUR" with dazzling gifts and jagged flaws aEUR" learned from his aEUR?great contemporariesaEUR (TM) and what they saw in him.