Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat : The Great Speeches

The most eloquent and expressive statesman of his time phrases such as 'iron curtain', 'business as usual', 'the few', and 'summit meeting' passed quickly into everyday use Winston Churchill used language as his most powerful weapon at a time when his most frequent complaint was that the armoury was otherwise empty. In this volume, David Cannadine selects thirty-three orations ranging over fifty years, demonstrating how Churchill gradually hones his rhetoric until the day when, with spectacular effect, 'he mobilized the English language, and sent it into battle' (Edward R. Murrow).

Winston Churchill (1874-û1965) was prime minister of Great Britain from 1940 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1955. A prolific writer whose works include The Second World War and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.
David Cannadine is the author, most recently, of Mellon: An American Life, as well as The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy, which won the Lionel Trilling Prize and the Governors-' Award. He teaches at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London.