Over Several Tops 
Bernard Porter
- Churchill: A Study in Greatness by Geoffrey Best
- Churchill by Roy Jenkins
Why two more Churchill biographies? Geoffrey Best reckons there are fifty or a hundred out there already. Two good reasons to want to add to them would be the unearthing of new evidence or a radically different interpretation. Roy Jenkins says he is not ‘a great partisan of the “revelatory” biography’, and claims that for Churchill nearly all the ‘facts’ are known in any case. One of Best’s motives for writing his book is to scotch some of the wilder recent interpretations he believes have obscured an older and safer wisdom. Neither author professes originality. So why did they bother adding to the list?
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Bernard Porter is an emeritus professor of history, with several books on British imperialism and the secret services to his name. He is currently writing on Victorian architecture and society.
Other articles by this contributor:
How did they get away with it? · Britain’s Atrocities in Kenya
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