The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

Author: Erik Larson #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers a fresh and compelling portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz   "Churchill's lessons of resilience and his style of steady-handed leadership are essential to the state of mind of American readers."--Vanity Fair"A bravura performance by one of America's greatest storytellers."--NPR   On Winston Churchill's first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally--and willing to fight to the end.   In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being