Superb. A timely parable about the necessity for cooperation, concession and compromise in politics., Daily Mail, 'Book of the Week' Dual biographies are a tricky endeavour. McKinstry rises to the challenge brilliantly. His account is elegantly structured, his prose is lucid, he explains complex events with clarity, his anecdotes are telling and often funny, his judgments are assured and he brings to gripping life the characters of the leading men and the rest of the cast. -- Andrew Rawnsley, Observer In this superb dual biography Leo McKinstry brilliantly describes both men, what they did and how they reacted to each other. Most of us know quite a lot about Churchill. Attlee, calm, soft-spoken, an MC-winner in World War I, self-effacing, remains for many a forgotten man.

Until now. A masterpiece., Frederick Forsyth Until now, arguably the most significant political relationship of the twentieth century has awaited its definitive study. Leo McKinstry, through exhaustive research and detailed analysis, has provided an intensely scholarly and beautifully written account of it that is unlikely to be surpassed., Simon Heffer, author of The Age of Decadence Leo McKinstry's fine book on the relationship between Churchill and the Labour leader Clement Attlee is a subtle and nuanced work full of illuminating insights. First-class, Literary Review Attlee and Churchill really does get to the heart of a complicated but fascinating relationship., Scotsman Leo McKinstry is a first-class historian who has produced a scholarly and very well-written account of the fascinating relationship between arguably the two most significant premiers of the twentieth century. His recognition of the mutual respect - indeed admiration - that lay at its core is highly insightful.

Never in our world of fractious, contempt-driven politics has a book like this been needed more., Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny A masterful account of the collaboration, rivalry and conflict between two remarkably different leaders who shaped Britain's fate in the second half of the twentieth century., Tom Bower, author of Dangerous Hero A superb account of two utterly different men whose lives entwined to preserve freedom., Joshua Levine, author of Dunkirk By turns fascinating and illuminating, this is a gripping exploration of the intertwined lives of these two great men - so fundamentally different and yet as McKinstry demonstrates, perhaps in some ways not quite so far apart as all that. In the course of following Attlee and Churchill's parallel progressions from youth to maturity, from bloodied battlefields to the corridors of Number 10, McKinstry affords us beguiling new angles and new insights - with vivid, powerful stories, admirable balance and flashes of terrific humour., Sinclair McKay, author of The Secret Life of Bletchley Park.