The #1 New York Times bestselling author delivers a startlingly fresh portrait of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz.

On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, 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, the Nazis would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons and destroying two million homes.

In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson gives a new and brilliantly cinematic account of how Britain’s most iconic leader set about unifying the nation at its most vulnerable moment, and teaching ‘the art of being fearless.’ Larson follows Churchill as prime minister through the fraught meeting rooms, streets and air raids of London’s darkest year, and Churchill as family man into his home, where tensions were just as complicated: his wife, Clementine; their daughters, Sarah, Diana, and the youngest, Mary, who chafed against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph; his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; her illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the cadre of close advisors who comprised Churchill’s ‘Secret Circle’.

Drawing on once-secret intelligence reports and diaries, The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when – in the face of unrelenting horror – a leader of eloquence, strategic brilliance and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.

Reviews

PRAISE FOR THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE

‘This book is peppered with eye-popping details … A deeply compelling work of history … Without resorting to heroism, it makes one long powerfully for real leadership.’

Lit Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2020

‘I have an early copy of this book on my desk and idly began reading the first pages –and suddenly time disappeared.’

Seattle Times

‘What Larson brilliantly provides are the finer details of the effects on England as he focuses on the family and home of its dynamic, idiosyncratic, and indefatigable leader…Larson’s skill at integrating vast research and talent for capturing compelling human dramas culminate in an inspirational portrait of one of history’s finest, most fearless leaders.’

Booklist, starred review

‘A captivating history of Churchill’s heroic year, with more than the usual emphasis on his intimates.’

Kirkus Reviews, starred review

PRAISE FOR ERIK LARSON

“Engrossing . . . exceedingly well documented . . . utterly fascinating.” — Chicago Tribune

“A dynamic, enveloping book. . . . Relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramatic effect of a novel. . . . It doesn’t hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction.” — The New York Times

"So good, you find yourself asking how you could not know this already." — Esquire

“Another successful exploration of American history. . . . Larson skillfully balances the grisly details with the far-reaching implications of the World’s Fair.” — USA Today

“As absorbing a piece of popular history as one will ever hope to find.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“Paints a dazzling picture of the Gilded Age and prefigure the American century to come.” — Entertainment Weekly

“A wonderfully unexpected book. . . Larson is a historian . . . with a novelist’s soul.” — Chicago Sun-Times