Darkest Hour

May 1940. Winston Churchill has been Prime Minister for three days. The German army is sweeping through France. The British Expeditionary Force is trapped at Dunkirk. And in the War Cabinet, a debate is taking place that will determine the fate of the war and of the world: whether Britain should seek a negotiated peace with Hitler — which would almost certainly mean Nazi domination of Europe — or fight on alone, with no guarantee of survival.

Anthony McCarten’s Darkest Hour — the basis for the Academy Award-winning film — reconstructs those critical days with the intimacy of a novel and the authority of meticulous historical research. At its centre is Churchill himself: magnificent, infuriating, physically crumbling, and animated by a conviction about the nature of the Nazi threat that his colleagues could not fully share.

A gripping, beautifully written account of the moment when a single leader’s character intersected with history at its most consequential. Essential reading for students of the Second World War and of political leadership. Published by Penguin.