Winston Churchill's key role in the outcome of the Second World War brought him international renown and arguably made him the most important figure in twentieth-century British politics. Born into an aristocratic family in 1875, his life spanned two centuries and nine decades of personal, social and political change, and it is against this background that Stuart Ball, a leading historian of modern British politics, discusses the remarkable ups and downs of Churchill's career.

After election to Parliament in 1900, Churchill rose quickly to high military and political office. But he...

T.E. Lawrence (1888-1935)known worldwide as Lawrence of Arabia was many people in one: scholar, archaeologist, intelligence officer, guerrilla leader, diplomat, aspiring writer, and ordinary serviceman hiding under aliases from the celebrity he had first largely created and then come to despise. Illegitimate, but with aristocratic connections, an outsider yet also at ease with, and much admired by, many of his finest contemporaries, he was a man forever on the run, whether as a youth searching for fresh experience and fame, or a middle-aged figure seeking sanctuary both from his reputation...