Product Description

The two most significant British political figures of the twentieth-century, Churchill and Lloyd George were political rivals but personal friends. Between them their ministerial careers spanned seventy years and two world wars. Althought they could not have been more different temperamentally, and often disagreed violently about politics, theirs was 'the longest political friendship in the life of Great Britain' and Churchill was the only person outside his family to call Lloyd George 'David'. Richard Toye's book is a dynamic account of their relationship. Drawing on diaries and letters, some never before published, (there are more than 1,000 pieces of correspondence between the two men), he explores their long-standing friendship and rivalry, the impact they had on each other's careers, and the fate of their respective reputations, arguing that Lloyd George's major achievements have been undeservedly overshadowed, in part as a consequence of Churchill's later mythmaking. It is a major work from a brilliant young historian.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18919 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 356 pages

The Independent
'Toye's intelligent and assured book reveals that friendship and power do not mix.'

Journal of Liberal History Spring 2008 Dr J.Graham Jones
'Outstandingly full and balanced survey of the political and personal relationship between the two great wartime leaders, spanning five decades.'

Seven, Sunday Telegraph
'a mine of fascinating material'

Customer Reviews

Subversive
The traditional view of the unlikely friendship between Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George is that of 'David and Winston', political friends and rivals who, while they might have disagreed, never fell out. As Lloyd George's great grandson has put it, 'the friendship which changed history'. Toye challenges this view, at the same time pointing out that, at various times, it was convenient for the two men to create the myth. What emerges is a picture of two men, very different in temperament, who, while they got on personally, were political rivals, both having their eyes on the Premiership, and willing to undermine each other in order to get it. The most fascinating part is that dealing with Churchill's wartime premiership, which we are now much more aware was hardly the triumphant progress some have portrayed it as. The statement that Llooyd George embraced defeatism, and may even have seen himself as a British Petain is sadly only too likely, given other material which has come to light in recent family memoirs.

Toye rightly does not over-egg the pudding. Clearly the men were friends as well as colleagues, but he captures the complexity of political friendship over decades.