The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History

"He’s not the only one on our list to indulge in history as personal manifesto. Boris Johnson wrote a book published in 2015 on Winston Churchill, The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History. Johnson canters through Churchill’s career, outlining the continuing relevance of the great man’s attitude to Europe, the US and the Middle East, amongst other things. Johnson’s thesis is that Churchill may have had faults and made mistakes, but on all the big issues he called it right and that, as a politician, he had a unique combination of personal qualities – bravery, industry, eloquence and, when necessary, ruthlessness – that put him in a league of his own. The subtext bubbles up from every page: The Churchill Factor: Why I Have it in Spades . Of course, such self-promotion need not necessarily matter. The Johnson book is a great read and that self-promotion – and ability to write – is something Boris Johnson certainly does share with his hero. Churchill himself was perfectly frank about the purpose of his literary efforts – he was going to be viewed kindly by history because he was going to write it. That didn’t stop him winning the Nobel Prize in Literature."