Reputations are shredded with gusto, even if not always with justice. Many will be surprised by Hastings’ low opinion of Marshall and King, the leading figures among the US chiefs of staff, who come over as unimaginative and petty. Even Roosevelt is portrayed as naive, duplicitous and fundamentally anti-British. Many of these judgments serve to give dramatic emphasis to what is perhaps the main theme of this book. For all his mistakes, Churchill had a moral stature, a generosity of spirit and a largeness of vision unique among his leading contemporaries, qualities which were acknowledged even by those who disagreed with him. They enabled him to exercise an influence, particularly in 1942 and 1943, out of all proportion to the military and economic weight of his country. Even his misjudgments were pressed with a force of personality and a rhetorical skill which forced his allies and his chiefs of staff to think beyond the routine, and to work harder to justify their views. ‘No man’, wrote Isaiah Berlin, ‘has ever loved life more vehemently and infused so much of it into every one and every thing that he has touched.’
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