Summits: Six Meetings that Shaped the Twentieth Century
By David Reynolds
Allen Lane £25, 481 pages
FT bookshop price: £20

The term “summit” was coined by Winston Churchill in an election speech in 1950, where he advocated a meeting with Stalin. “It is not easy to see,” he declared, “how matters could be worsened by a parley at the summit.” A few years later, in 1953, the conquest of Everest led the cartoonist Vicky to show “a four-power expedition – preparing the long delayed attempt to climb the highest mountain of all”, which is of course peace.