The most eloquent and expressive statesman of his time – phrases such as ‘iron curtain’, ‘business as usual’, ‘the few’, and ‘summit meeting’ passed quickly into everyday use – Winston Churchill used language as his most powerful weapon at a time when his most frequent complaint was that the armoury was otherwise empty.

In this volume, David Cannadine selects thirty-three orations ranging over fifty years, demonstrating how Churchill gradually hones his rhetoric until the day when, with spectacular effect, ‘he mobilized the English language, and sent it into battle’ (Edward R. Murrow).