The long-awaited third and last volume of William Manchester’s masterful biography of Winston Churchill covers the final 25 years of the subject’s life – nearly as long as it took to research and write the book.

It was worth the wait.

Even if it had ended in 1940, Churchill’s career was remarkable enough to justify the first two volumes that span a neglected childhood, a search for glory on the battlefield and years in the political wilderness in which he warned his countrymen about the looming threat in Nazi Germany.