Churchill’s Empire

Churchill’s Empire: The World That Made Him and the World He Made
By Richard Toye
Pan Macmillan £25, 425 pages
FT Bookshop price: £20

Winston Churchill’s reputation as a hardline imperialist is questioned here. Richard Toye argues that the man who in his younger years said, “I have not become the king’s first minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire” was also criticised for his left-wing views and liberal politics.

Toye, a professor of history at Exeter University, concedes that Churchill’s “decision to plump for free trade and the Liberals may have involved an element of opportunism”. But he also highlights how significantly his politics shifted during his career. It was only between the two world wars that Churchill “decided to become a Victorian” and cultivated his image as an imperial hero.

This detailed, engaging biography dwells on the dichotomy between Churchill pre- and post-second world war: between a time he was considered almost a danger to the empire, and a time he was considered its saviour.