Uniquely endowed with talent, energy and determination, Winston Churchill was, as a close wartime colleague put it, 'unlike anyone you have ever met before'.

To many, he was the saviour of the nation, even of Western civilization, 'the greatest Briton' who ever lived. Others would have agreed with Evelyn Waugh who described him 'always in the wrong, surrounded by crooks, a terrible father, a radio personality'. Whatever one's view, Winston Churchill remains splendidly unreduced and enormous fun.

Ashley Jackson describes the contours and contradictions of Churchill's remarkable life and career as a soldier, politician, historian, journalist, painter and homemaker. In doing so, he resists the temptation to conflate Churchill's post-war career with Britain's demise on the international stage. Nor does he endorse the notion that Churchill became an anachronism as he lived and continued to work, at a prodigious rate, through his seventies and eighties.

From thrusting subaltern to high-flying politician, Cabinet outcast to elder statesman, this is the eternally fascinating story of Winston Churchill's appointment with destiny.

Dr Ashley Jackson is a senior lecturer in the Defence Studies Department at King's College, London. He completed his doctorate at New College, Oxford in 1996. His research concentrates on the history of empire, particularly the British Empire.