The life of Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) is an extraordinary story of survival against the odds that ends in triumph. In this brilliant introduction to his life, Matthew Mills Stevenson explores the significant moments and places that helped to shape Churchill's remarkable career as a British politician, prime minister, soldier, and author.

Stevenson visits Pretoria in South Africa where in 1899 the young journalist Churchill was imprisoned and then escaped from Boer captivity. He walks the battlefields of Gallipoli in Turkey and looks out on the Dardanelles to ponder why Churchill's bold military strategy failed. He rides his bicycle along the Western Front of World War I to visit Ploegsteert in Belgium, where Churchill commanded a battalion of the Scots Fusiliers. He visits Chartwell where Churchill spent the years out of office in the 1930s, warning the world of the dangers to come from Hitler and Fascism. He travels to Yalta (yes, on his bicycle) to write about Churchill's 1945 meetings with Joseph Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt, to evaluate his leadership during the Second World War.