Darkest Hour

From the acclaimed novelist and screenwriter of The Theory of Everything comes a revelatory look at the period immediately following Winston Churchills ascendancy to Prime Ministersoon to be a major motion picture starring Gary Oldman.He was speaking to the nation, the world, and indeed to history...May, 1940. Britain is at war. The horrors of blitzkrieg have seen one western European democracy after another fall in rapid succession to Nazi boot and shell. Invasion seems mere hours away.Just days after becoming Prime Minister, Winston Churchill must deal with this horroras well as a skeptical King, a party plotting against him, and an unprepared public. Pen in hand and typist-secretary at the ready, how could he change the mood and shore up the will of a nervous people?In this gripping day-by-day, often hour-by-hour account of how an often uncertain Churchill turned Britain around, the celebrated Bafta-winning writer Anthony McCarten exposes sides of the great man never seen before. He reveals how he practiced and re-wrote his key speeches, from Blood, toil, tears and sweat to We shall fight on the beaches, his consideration of a peace treaty with Nazi Germany, and his underappreciated role in the Dunkirk evacuation, and, above all, how 25 days helped make one man an icon.Using new archive material, McCarten reveals the crucial behind-the-scenes moments that changed the course of history. Its a scarierand more humanstory than has ever been told.McCarten's pulse-pounding narrative transports the reader to those springtime weeks in 1940 when the fate of the world rested on the shoulders of Winston Churchill.A true story thrillingly told. Thoroughly researched and compulsively readable.Michael F. Bishop, Executive Director of the International Churchill Society