Churchill ─ The Life: An Authorized Pictorial Biography

At 52nd Street and Madison Avenue in New York City sits Chartwell Books, the only bookshop in the world specializing in books, articles and memorabilia of Winston Churchill. Further south in Manhattan is the Morgan Library and Museum where in 2012 a record 70,000 visitors viewed the multimedia exhibition Churchill: The Power of Words.

This year is the 50th anniversary of Winston Churchill's death, and coincidentally the 70th anniversary of V-E Day. This stunning book commemorates the life of Britain's greatest leader and the best friend the United States ever had.

Eight sections narrate Churchill's monumental life and achievements:

• Youth 1874-1903: Unhappy son of a British duke and American mother; student; father's death
• Early Military Career 1898-1916: Soldier; war reporter; escaped prisoner; author; husband and father
• Early Political Career 1899-1922: Decorated soldier; parliamentarian; government minister
• The First World War: Political defeat and blunders; American lecture tour; government minister
• Rising through the ranks: Political legacy of the Great War; government minister; painter; farmer
• The Second World War: Prime Minister; V-E Day
• Post-War Years: Political defeat; "Iron Curtain" Speech; daughter's suicide; death of second daughter
• Legacy: Statesman; historian; Honorary Citizen of the United States; Nobel Prize Laureate, final days.

Author and chronicler Max Arthur includes:

• Previously unpublished photographs of artifacts in the Churchill Archive Centre
• Family pictures and private correspondence
• Telegrams, drafts of speeches, press cuttings and official papers
• Ephemera, like an early report card that describes him as "very bad--in constant trouble to everybody"
• Pictorial timelines
• Public correspondence and historical items given to him
• Fascinating and exhaustingly researched captions and quotes.

Max Arthur is one of Britain's leading oral historians, and author of Above All, Courage on the Falklands War, andLast Post: The Final Word from Our First World War Soldiers. His 2007 book,The Faces of World War I, is the biggest-selling illustrated book on the conflict in the UK. He lives and works in West Sussex, England.