Roy Jenkins.
ROY JENKINS
CHURCHILL: A BIOGRAPHY (2001)
Winston Churchill (born 1874) was one of the most prominent politicians of the twentieth century. He had a 64 year parliamentary career, serving as wartime Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945. He was Prime Minister again from 1951 to 1955, retiring from Parliament in 1964, and dying in 1965. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a descendant of the 1st Duke of Marlborough, and Churchill was born at the family’s ancestral home, Blenheim Palace. His mother, Jennie, was the daughter of the wealthy American businessman, Leonard Jerome. After his education at Harrow School, Churchill entered the army, serving in Cuba, India and Sudan. His writing career began when he joined, as a journalist, Bindon Blood’s Malakand Field Force fighting Mohmand rebels in North East India’s Swat Valley. Keen to participate in the Boer War, Churchill sailed to South Africa as a journalist for the Morning Post. Captured as a prisoner of war, Churchill escaped by stowing away in freight trains and hiding in a mine. In 1901, at the age of 25, he was elected as the Conservative MP for Oldham. From 1904 to 1915 he was a member of the LIberal Party, serving during the First World War as a cabinet minister in Lloyd George’s government.
The Wall Street Journal wrote of Roy Jenkins’ Churchill biography: “Unarguably the best single-volume biography of Churchill . . . A brilliant feat of storytelling, monumental in scope, yet put together with tenderness for a man who had always believed that he would be Britain’s savior.” The Observer wrote: ‘Do we really need another life of Winston Churchill? Yes, if it's as magnificent as this study by Roy Jenkins’.
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Roy Jenkins (born 1920) was a prolific and successful author as well as being a highly influential and effective Labour Minister. In 1965 he was appointed Home Secretary by Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. During his time as Home Secretary he initiated a sweeping programme of social reforms, This included the liberalisation of both divorce and abortion law, the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality, and the virrtual abolition of capital punishment. He also oversaw the aboltion of theatre censorship. The son of Arthur Jenkins, a coal miner and Labour MP, Roy Jenkins attended Oxford University, of which in retirement he beame Chancellor.
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BIOGRAPHIES BY ROY JENKINS
Roosevelt, Franklin. American President. By Roy Jenkins 2005.
Churchill, Winston. Wartime Prime Minister. By Roy Jenkins. 2001.
Gladstone, William. British Prime Minister. By Roy Jenkins. 1995.
Truman, Harry. President of the USA. By Roy Jenkins. 1986.
Baldwin, Stanley. British Prime Minister. By Roy Jenkins. 1984.
Asquith, Herbert. British Prime Minister. By Roy Jenkins. 1964.
Dilke, Charles. A Victorian tragedy. By Roy Jenkins. 1958.
Attlee, Clement. Labour Prime Minister. By Roy Jenkins. 1948.