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Lead book review

Churchill as villain – but is this a character assassination too far?

Revisionist biographies of Churchill are nothing new but this one lays the hostility and contempt on with a trowel, says Andrew Roberts

14 August 2021

9:00 AM

14 August 2021

9:00 AM

Churchill’s Shadow: An Astonishing Life and a Dangerous Legacy Geoffrey Wheatcroft

Bodley Head, pp.640, 25

The veteran journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft claims in his prologue to Churchill’s Shadow that: ‘This is not a hostile account, or not by intention, nor consciously “revisionist”, or contrarian,’ before launching into a long book that is virtually uninterrupted in its hostility to Winston Churchill, his memory and especially anyone who has had the temerity to admire Churchill or learn lessons from his life and career.

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