CHURCHILL’S life was politics. His career as an MP ran, virtually unbroken, from 1900 to 1964 – almost the first two-thirds of the twentieth century. But although Churchill lived for politics, he lived by writing. Much of his income was earned as a journalist and author. At one end of the spectrum were scores of newspaper columns assessing contemporary events and politicians, summarising the plots of great novels, or just musing for money – as in ‘Have You a Hobby?’ or ‘Are There Men in the Moon?’ At the other extreme are large books such as the biographies of his father (1906) and of his martial ancestor, the first duke of Marlborough (1933–8), and his History of the English-Speaking Peoples(1956–8). Somewhere in between are autobiographical vignettes such asThe Malakand Field Force(1898) andMy Early Life(1930). But it is for his two sets of war memoirs that Churchill the historian is most remembered – six separate volumes on World War I (1923–31) and its aftermath, six more on World War II and its origins (1948–54).