Churchill's lifetime (1874--1965) spans the climax and disintegration of the British Empire, and his triumphs and tragedies as a statesman are inseparable from those of the nation as a whole. Brilliant, flawed, and distrusted in his early career, he became, in the dark days of 1940, a national hero, whose indomitable self-confidence was a powerful force for survival. Yet out of victory came defeat: by 1955, eclipsed by the USA and the USSR, Britain seemed to be losing everything he had worked to preserve. For all Churchill's immense achievements, therefore, Keith Robbin's brilliant and succinct analysis is ultimately a study in failure: but it shows this awkward genius, in defeat as well as victory, to have been truly the symbol and mirror of his age.