Marlborough: His Life and Times, 1934

The second volume in the Nobel Prize winner’s biography of John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough: “The greatest historical work written in our century” (Leo Strauss).   After the defeat of the Conservative government in the 1929 general election, Winston S. Churchill entered a period of political exile; a time he referred to as “the wilderness years.” It was during this time that Churchill began his work on Marlborough: His Life and Times, widely considered to be one of his most ambitious and masterful literary works. Although not as well remembered as his more famous descendant—Churchill himself—Marlborough was an influential soldier and statesman of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Great Britain, known in his day as a gifted military commander who never lost a battle.   This second volume of Churchill’s four-part biography brings Marlborough’s military successes, political intrigues, and personal passions to life, while his descendant reflects “on the perplexities of alliances, the paradoxes of strategy, and the stresses of combat” (Foreign Affairs).  “An inexhaustible mine of political wisdom and understanding, which should be required reading for every student of political science.” —Leo Strauss