Paul Reid
The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill

Please join us for a discussion of the life of Winston Churchill by the co-author of a new biography, Paul Reid.

Monumental bestsellers, the first two volumes of William Manchester’s legendary biography of Winston Churchill were among the most celebrated and popular works of biography in recent history. At long last, Little, Brown and Company has publishing the third and final volume: THE LAST LION: WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL: Defender of the Realm, 1940–1965 (November 6, 2012; $40.00; 1,232 pages). More than twenty years in the writing, and masterfully completed after Manchester’s death by award-winning journalist Paul Reid, Defender of the Realm, 1940–1965 presents a revelatory and unparalleled portrait of this brilliant, flawed, and dynamic leader.

Defender of the Realm picks up shortly after Winston Churchill became prime minister, at a time when his tiny island nation stood alone against the overwhelming might of Nazi Germany. The Churchill conjured up by William Manchester and Paul Reid is a man of indomitable courage, lightning-fast intellect, and an irresistible will to action. Defender of the Realm brilliantly recounts how Churchill organized his nation’s military response and defense; compelled FDR into supporting America’s beleaguered cousins, and personified the “never surrender” ethos that helped the Allies win the war, while at the same time adapting himself and his country to the inevitable shift in world power from the British Empire to the United States, and the rising threat of the Soviet Union.

Unprecedented in its breadth and depth, massively researched, and expertly told with Manchester’s trademark narrative pace and cadence, THE LAST LION: Defender of the Realm is the grand finale of a celebrated three-volume biography and the mesmerizing journey through the life and times of Winston Spencer Churchill.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS William Manchester was a tremendously successful popular historian and biographer whose books include The Last Lion: Visions of Glory, The Last Lion: Alone, Goodbye Darkness, A World Lit Only by Fire, The Glory and the Dream, The Arms of Krupp, American Caesar, and The Death of A President. In 1998, after completing much of the research for the final volume of THE LAST LION, Manchester suffered two strokes that left him unable to write. Manchester sought a writer with a reporting background to complete his work. In 2003, Manchester asked his friend Paul Reid to complete Defender of the Realm. Reid, who now lives in Tryon, North Carolina, had spent many years as a feature writer for the Palm Beach Post. But Manchester died less than two months after passing the baton to Reid. Before writing Defender of the Realm, Reid augmented Manchester’s voluminous notes with extensive research of his own. The result, after more than eight years of effort, is the most thrilling volume of THE LAST LION triptych.

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