The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson [Paperback]

"#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Devil in the White City delivers an "enthralling" (O: Oprah Magazine) portrait of leadership in a time of crisis In Winston Churchill's first day as prime minister, Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold the country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end.In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless." It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it's also an intimate domestic drama set against the backdrop of Churchill's prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest a