‘In Command of History’ by David Reynolds (Random House)

It should be no surprise that it was a book-lover who saved Western Civilization when England stood alone against Hitler and wrote what is still the most enjoyable narrative history of World War Two.

‘In Command of History’: How Churchill Revised World War II - New York Times:In Command of History’: How Churchill Revised World War II

By MAX BOOT
Published: November 13, 2005

HISTORIANS spend a lot of time visiting libraries and archives, reading dusty tomes, taking notes, and writing and revising their manuscripts. A book that describes the gestation of a historical work would therefore seem about as thrilling as an in-depth account of cabinetmaking. Except, that is, when the historian in question is Winston Churchill and the book in question is a description of a war in which he played a starring role.
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That is the subject that David Reynolds, a professor of international history at Cambridge University, has chosen for himself. Despite the hall-of-mirrors quality of “In Command of History” - a historian writing about another historian writing another book - he has produced a fascinating account that accomplishes the impossible: he actually finds something new and interesting to say about one of the most chronicled characters of all time.

“In Command of History” describes how Churchill produced the six volumes of “The Second World War,” which appeared between 1948 and 1954.

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