The Bibliography of Winston Churchill includes the major scholarly and nonfiction books and scholarly articles on the career of Winston Churchill, as well as other online sources of information.
Cannadine, David. The Aristocratic Adventurer, (Penguin, 2005).
Catherwood, Christopher. Winston Churchill: A Reference Guide to His Life and Works (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020), a biography by topics, arranged alphabetically. online
Charmley, John. Churchill: The End of Glory. A Political Biography (1993), a revisionist book that emphasizes his political weaknesses and mistakes down to 1945. He argues that Churchill led Britain into bankruptcy, lost the British Empire, and opened the way for American world domination. See also online book review
Cooper, Esmond. Winston Churchill for Kids: The Story of Bravery, Dreams, and Dedication (2023), for ages 3 to 7.
Shelden, Michael. Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill (Simon & Schuster 2013), 1900 to 1914.
Tariq, Ali. Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes (Verso Books 2022)
Official biographies by Randolph Churchill and Martin Gilbert
The Churchill family controls many of the documents and has authorized an 8-volume official biography. It was started by his son Randolph Churchill (1911–1968) and finished after his death by Martin Gilbert (1936–2015), a scholar at Oxford. It included "Companion volumes" filled with original sources. The total is 28 volumes with over 30,000 pages and many illustrations. The detail is so thorough and minute that the broader context is obscure and hard to follow.
Winston S. Churchill: Prophet of Truth 1922–1939 (1979) online
Winston S. Churchill: Finest Hour, 1939–1941 (1983) online
Winston S. Churchill: Road to Victory, 1941–1945 (1986) online
Winston S. Churchill: Never Despair 1945–1965 (1988) online
Gilbert, Martin. In search of Churchill : a historian's journey (1994) online
Gilbert, Martin. Churchill and America (Simon and Schuster, 2005)
Gilbert, Martin. The will of the people : Winston Churchill and parliamentary democracy (2006)
Gilbert, Martin. Churchill & the Jews: A Lifelong Friendship (2007).
Companion volumes
These books contain a very large collection of primary sources, especially memoranda written by Churchill, letters to him and from him, and notes of meetings he attended. Very few of the Companion books are online.
Churchill, Randolph, ed. Winston S. Churchill: Volume One Companion, 1874–1900 (1966, in two parts)
Churchill, Randolph, ed. Winston S. Churchill: Volume Two Companion, 1900–1914 (1969, in three parts). vol 2 part 2 1907–1911 online
Gilbert, Martin (1972a), Winston S Churchill, vol. Three, Documents (in two volumes)
—— (1977a), Winston S Churchill, vol. Four, Documents (in three volumes)
—— (1979b), Winston S Churchill, vol. The Exchequer Years, 1922–1929, Documents
—— (1981a), Winston S Churchill, vol. The Wilderness Years, 1929–1935, Documents
—— (1982a), Winston S Churchill, vol. The Coming of War, 1936–1939, Documents
—— (1993a), The Churchill War Papers, vol. One: Winston S Churchill, 'At The Admiralty': September 1939 – May 1940
—— (1995a), The Churchill War Papers, vol. Two: Winston S Churchill, 'Never Surrender': May – December 1940
—— (2000a), The Churchill War Papers, vol. Three: Winston S Churchill, 'The Ever-Widening War': 1941
—— (2014), The Churchill Documents, vol. Seventeen: Testing Times: 1942
——; Arnn, Larry (2015), The Churchill Documents, vol. Eighteen: One Continent Redeemed, January–August 1943
——; Arnn, Larry (2017), The Churchill Documents, vol. Nineteen: Fateful Questions, September 1943 – April 1944
——; Arnn, Larry (2018), The Churchill Documents, vol. Twenty: Normandy and Beyond, May–December 1944
——; Arnn, Larry (2019), The Churchill Documents, vol. Twenty-One: The Shadows of Victory, January–July 1945
——; Arnn, Larry (2019), The Churchill Documents, vol. Twenty-Two: Leader of the Opposition, August 1945–October 1951
——; Arnn, Larry (2019), The Churchill Documents, vol. Twenty-Three: Never Flinch, Never Weary, November 1951–February 1965
World War II
See also the biographies above, especially Jackson (2011), Jenkins (2001), Pelling (1974) and Roberts (2018).
Barker, Elisabeth. Churchill and Eden at war (1978), foreign policy. online
Bell, Christopher M. “The ‘Singapore Strategy’ and the Deterrence of Japan: Winston Churchill, the Admiralty and the Dispatch of Force Z.” English Historical Review 116#467 (2001) pp. 604–634. online
Ben-Moshe, Tuvia. “Winston Churchill and the ‘Second Front’: A Reappraisal.” Journal of Modern History, 62#3 (1990), pp. 503–537. online
Bercuson, Holger, and David; Herwig. One Christmas in Washington: The Secret Meeting Between Roosevelt & Churchill That Changed the World (2005) online
Bernstein, Barton J. “The Uneasy Alliance: Roosevelt, Churchill and the Atom Bomb, 1940–1945.” Western Political Quarterly 29#2 (1976) pp. 202–230.
Berthon, Simon. Allies at War: The Bitter Rivalry Among Churchill, Roosevelt, and De Gaulle (2001) online; focus on France.
Biddle, Tami Davis. “Democratic Leaders and Strategies of Coalition Warfare: Churchill and Roosevelt in World War II.” in The New Makers of Modern Strategy: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age, edited by Hal Brands, (Princeton UP, 2023), pp. 569–592. online
Charmley, John. Churchill's Grand Alliance: The Anglo-American Special Relationship, 1940–1957: (1995).
Cowman, Ian. "Main fleet to Singapore? Churchill, the admiralty, and force Z." Journal of Strategic Studies 17.2 (1994): 79–93.
Dilks, David. Churchill and company: Allies and rivals in war and peace (Bloomsbury, 2012) online
Dockter, A. Warren. "Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill: Power relations." in The Palgrave Handbook of Presidents and Prime Ministers From Cleveland and Salisbury to Trump and Johnson (Springer International Publishing, 2022) pp. 133–155.
Feis, Herbert. Churchill-Roosevelt-Stalin: The war they waged and the peace they sought (Princeton UP, 1957) online
Fenby, Jonathan. Alliance: The Inside Story of How Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill Won One War and Began Another (2007), popular history. online
Gorodetsky, Gabriel. “The Origins of the Cold War: Stalin, Churchill and the Formation of the Grand Alliance.” The Russian Review, 47#2 (1988), pp. 145–170. online, argues Churchill was hostile toward Communism in World War II
Hastings, Max.Finest Years. Churchill as Warlord, 1940–45 (HarperCollins. 2009)
Hermiston, Roger. All Behind You, Winston: Churchill's Great Coalition 1940–45 (2016) online.
Kimball, Warren F. Forged in War: Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Second World War (1997).
Kitchen, Martin. "Winston Churchill and the Soviet Union during the Second World War." The Historical Journal 30.2 (1987): 415–436. online
Lash, Joseph P. Roosevelt and Churchill, 1939–1941: The partnership that saved the West (2021) online.
Lukacs, John. Blood, toil, tears, and sweat: the dire warning (2008) background
Maguire, Lori. " 'We Shall Fight': A Rhetorical Analysis of Churchill's Famous Speech." Rhetoric & Public Affairs 17.2 (2014): 255–286, online
Meacham, Jon. Franklin and Winston: A Portrait of a Friendship (Granta Books, 2016).
Parker, RAC. Churchill and Appeasement (2000). Parker is unusual among historians in his sympathy for Churchill's claim that Britain and France could have deterred Hitler by forming a "Grand Alliance" with the USSR.
Peden, G.C. Churchill, Chamberlain and Appeasement (Cambridge UP, 2022).
Pitt, Barrie. Churchill and the Generals (1981). Written to accompany a 1979 series of TV plays.
Preston, Diana. Eight Days at Yalta: How Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin Shaped the Post-war World (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2020).
Ramsden, John. "Churchill and the Germans." Contemporary British History 25.01 (2011): 125–139. online
Resis, Albert (April 1978). "The Churchill-Stalin Secret "Percentages" Agreement on the Balkans, Moscow, October 1944". American Historical Review. 83 (2): 368–387. doi:10.2307/1862322. JSTOR1862322.
Reynolds, David. "The ‘Big three’ and the division of Europe, 1945–48: An overview." Diplomacy and Statecraft 1.2 (1990): 111–136.
Reynolds, David. From World War to Cold War: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the International History of the 1940s (Oxford UP, 2006).
Roberts, Andrew. Masters and commanders : how four titans won the war in the west, 1941–1945 (2009)
Schneer, Jonathan. Ministers at War: Winston Churchill and His War Cabinet (Basic Books, 2015).
Shakespeare, Nicholas. SIx Minutes in May (2018). Study of the Norway Campaign, the subsequent Commons debate, and the emergence of Churchill as Prime Minister.
Stafford, David. Churchill and Secret Service (1999) online
Stafford, David. Roosevelt and Churchill : men of secrets (2000) online
Thompson, Neville. The Third Man: Churchill, Roosevelt, Mackenzie King, and the Untold Friendships that Won WWII (2021), on Canada's role.
Todman, Daniel. Britain's War: Into Battle, 1937–1941 (Oxford UP, 2016)
Todman, Daniel. Britain's War: A New World: 1942–1947 (Oxford UP, 2020); in-depth scholarly survey.
Toye, Richard. "This famous island is the home of freedom’: Winston Churchill and the battle for ‘European civilization." History of European Ideas 46.5 (2020): 666–680. online
Woodward, Llewellyn. British foreign policy in the Second World War (1962), summary of his five volume history. online
Specialty studies
Addison, Paul. "The political beliefs of Winston Churchill." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 30 (1980): 23–47. online
Addison, Paul. Churchill on the home front, 1900–1955 (Faber & Faber, 2013).
Ball, Stuart. "Churchill and the Conservative party." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 11 (2001): 307–330. online
Bédarida, François. "Winston Churchill's image of France and the French." Historical Research 74.183 (2001): 95–105.
Bell, Christopher M. Churchill and the Dardanelles (2017), focus on the Gallipoli campaign's origins and execution. online
Bell, Christopher M. Churchill and Sea Power (Oxford UP, 2013).
Bell, Christopher M. (2011). "Sir John Fisher's Naval Revolution Reconsidered: Winston Churchill at the Admiralty, 1911–1914". War in History. 18 (3): 333–356. doi:10.1177/0968344511401489. S2CID159573922. A reply to the writings of Nicholas Lambert (not to be confused with Andrew Lambert), who argues that the pre-WW1 Royal Navy was beginning to reorient itself towards a strategy of torpedo boats and economic warfare rather than traditional big-gun battleship warfare.
Gilbert, Bentley B. "Winston Churchill versus the Webbs: The origins of British unemployment insurance." American Historical Review 71.3 (1966): 846–862. online
Carlton, David. Churchill and the Soviet Union (2000).
Catherwood, Christopher. Churchill's Folly: How Winston Churchill Created Iraq. Carroll and Graf, US (2004)
Catterall, Peter. "Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer (1924–9) and the return to the gold standard." (Churchill Archive. 2013). online
Dawson, R. MacGregor. “The Cabinet Minister and Administration: Winston S. Churchill at the Admiralty 1911–1915.” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science (1940), pp. 325–358.
D'Este, Carlo. Warlord: Churchill At War 1874–1965 (2009).
Douglas, R. M. (2009). "Did Britain Use Chemical Weapons in Mandatory Iraq?". The Journal of Modern History. 81 (4): 859–887. doi:10.1086/605488. S2CID154708409.
Faught, C. Brad. Churchill and Africa: Empire, Decolonisation and Africa. (Pen and Sword, 2023).
Franklin, Mark, and Matthew Ladner. “The Undoing of Winston Churchill: Mobilization and Conversion in the 1945 Realignment of British Voters.” British Journal of Political Science, vol. 25, no. 4, 1995, pp. 429–452. online explores why voters turned against him in 1945.
Harbutt, Fraser J. The iron curtain: Churchill, America, and the origins of the Cold War (Oxford UP, 1988).
Herman, Arthur. Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire & Forged Our Age (2008), on India
Hermiston, Roger. All Behind You, Winston – Churchill's Great Coalition, 1940–45 (2016).
Hughes, E. J. “Winston Churchill and the Formation of the United Nations Organization.” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 9, no. 4, 1974, pp. 177–194. online, on his support for League of Nations and UN.
James, Lawrence. Churchill and empire : a portrait of an imperialist (2013)
Jeffrey, Marjorie. "Science, democracy, and peace: Churchill on society and statesmanship, in the Fulton Address and beyond." Journal of Transatlantic Studies 14 (2016): 326–339.
McKercher, B.J.C., and Antoine Capet, eds. Winston Churchill: at war and thinking of war before 1939 (Routledge, 2019).
Moritz, Edward Jr. "Winston Churchill – Prison Reformer". Historian (1958). 20 (4): 428–440. online
Reagles, David, and Timothy Larsen. "Winston Churchill and Almighty God". Historically Speaking (2013)14 (5): 8–10. doi:10.1353/hsp.2013.0056. On his religion.
Roskill, Stephen. Churchill and the Admirals (1977). A classic, but some of his arguments need to be checked against more recent work, e.g. Christopher Bell.
Ryan, Henry B. “A New Look at Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ Speech.” The Historical Journal, vol. 22, no. 4, 1979, pp. 895–920. online
Seligmann, Matthew S. Rum, Sodomy, Prayers, and the Lash Revisited: Winston Churchill and Social Reform in the Royal Navy, 1900–1915 (Oxford UP, 2018).
Smith, Gary Scott. Duty and Destiny: The Life and Faith of Winston Churchill (Eerdmans, 2021), focus on religion.
Soames, Mary. Clementine Churchill (1981) author was the daughter of Winston and his wife Clementine Churchill. online
Stewart, Graham. Burying Caesar: Churchill, Chamberlain and the Battle for the Tory Party (1998). A study of the inter-war period.
Toye, Richard.Lloyd George and Churchill: Rivals for Greatness (Macmillan, 2007) online
Toye, Richard, ed.Winston Churchill: Politics, Strategy and Statecraft (Bloomsbury, 2017).
Toye, Richard. “Winston Churchill’s ‘Crazy Broadcast’: Party, Nation, and the 1945 Gestapo Speech.” Journal of British Studies 49#3 (2010), pp. 655–680. online
Toye, Richard.Churchill's empire : the world that made him and the world he made (2010)
Ward, Jeremy K. “Winston Churchill and the ‘Iron Curtain’ Speech.” The History Teacher 1#2 (1968), pp. 5–13, 57–63. online
Watry, David M. Diplomacy at the Brink: Eisenhower, Churchill, and Eden in the Cold War (LSU Press, 2014).
Watson, Alan. Churchill's Legacy: Two Speeches to Save The World (2016). Study of the Iron Curtain Speech at Fulton, Missouri and the Zurich speech calling for a United States of Europe, both delivered in 1946.
Young, John W. “Churchill’s ‘No’ to Europe: The ‘Rejection’ of European Union by Churchill's Post-War Government, 1951–1952.” The Historical Journal, 28#4 (1985), pp. 923–937. online
Historiography and memory
Adams, Edward (2011). Liberal Epic: The Victorian Practice of History from Gibbon to Churchill. Charlottesville: U of Virginia Press. ISBN978-08-13931-45-6.
Addison, Paul. "The Three Careers of Winston Churchill." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 11 (2001): 183–199. on his reputation in three areas. online
Addison, Paul. Churchill: The Unexpected Hero (Oxford UP, 2006)
Alldritt, Keith. Churchill the Writer: His Life as a Man of Letters (Hutchinson, 1992)
Ashley, Maurice. Churchill as Historian (Scribner's, 1968). online
Barrett, Buckley B. Churchill: a concise bibliography (Greenwood, 2000)
Black, Jonathan. Winston Churchill in British art, 1900 to the Present Day: the Titan with many faces (Bloomsbury, 2017).
Cannadine, David. In Churchill's Shadow: Confronting the Past in Modern Britain (Oxford UP, 2003) [1].
Clarke, Peter. Mr. Churchill's Profession: Statesman, Orator, Writer. (2012) Study of his writing career and earnings.
Eade, Charles. Churchill by his Contemporaries. (Hutchinson, 1953)
Fielding, Steven et al. The Churchill Myths (Oxford UP, 2020) about mistaken memories and deliberate distortions designed to support particular policies.
Gilbert, Martin. In search of Churchill : a historian's journey (1994) online
Lee, Peter, and Colin McHattie. "Winston Churchill and the bombing of German cities, 1940‒1945." Global War Studies 13.1 (2016): 47–69, on the debate among historians. online
Lewis, Gordon K. "Mr. Churchill as Historian." The Historian 20.4 (1958): 387–414. online
Lough, David. No More Champagne (2015). Study of Churchill's finances, including literary earnings. Lough was granted unprecedented access to his private banking records.
Prior, Robin. Churchill's World Crisis as History (1983),
Ramsden, John. Man of the Century: Winston Churchill and his Legend since 1945 (Columbia UP, 2002) online how Churchill was perceived in major countries
Reynolds, David. In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (Random House, 2005). review of this book
Reynolds, David. "Churchill’s Writing of History: Appeasement, Autobiography and The Gathering Storm." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 11 (2001): 221–247. online
Reynolds, David. "Official history: how Churchill and the cabinet office wrote The Second World War." Historical Research 78.201 (2005): 400–422. online
Rose, Jonathan. The literary Churchill: author, reader, actor (Yale UP, 2014).
Rubin, Louis D. "Did Churchill ruin 'the great work of time'? thoughts on the new British revisionism." Virginia Quarterly Review 70.1 (1994): 59–78. [2], focus on John Charmley (1993), who argues Churchill bankrupted Britain, lost the British Empire, and helped US gain world domination.
Stafford, David. Oblivion Or Glory: 1921 and the Making of Winston Churchill (Yale UP, 2019).
Taylor, A.J.P., et al. Churchill Revised: A Critical Assessment (Dial Press, 1969). online
Toye, Richard, ed. Winston Churchill: Politics, Strategy, and Statecraft (2017). essays by scholars.
Toye, Richard. The roar of the lion: the untold story of Churchill's World War II speeches (Oxford UP, 2013) online.
Weidhom, Manfred. Sword and Pen: A Survey of the Writings of Sir Winston Churchill (U of New Mexico Press, 1974).
Woods, Frederick. A bibliography of the works of Sir Winston Churchill (1963) online
Wrigley, Chris. Winston Churchill: A biographical companion (Bloomsbury, 2002). online
Zoller, Curt, and Richard M. Langworth. Annotated bibliography of works about Sir Winston S. Churchill (Routledge, 2015) online.
Primary sources
See also the 23 Companion volumes listed above.
Carter, Violet Bonham, Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury. Winston Churchill as I knew him. (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1965)
Kimball, Warren F. ed. Churchill & Roosevelt - The Complete Correspondence: Volume 1: Alliance Emerging (HarperCollins, 1967) online
Kimball, Warren F. ed. Churchill & Roosevelt – The Complete Correspondence: Volume 2: Alliance Forged (HarperCollins, 1967)
Kimball, Warren F. ed. Churchill & Roosevelt – The Complete Correspondence: Volume 3: Alliance Declining (1984)
Leutze, James. “The Secret of the Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence: September 1939 – May 1940.” Journal of Contemporary History, 10#3 (1975), pp. 465–491. online, argues FDR wanted to enter the war.
Reynolds, David, and Vladimir Pechatnov, eds. The Kremlin Letters: Stalin’s Wartime Correspondence with Churchill and Roosevelt (Yale UP, 2018)
Rhodes James, Robert, ed. Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches 1897–1963 (8 vols. Chelsea House, 1974).
Sand, G. W. Defending the West: The Truman-Churchill Correspondence, 1945–1960 (Praeger, 2004).
Soames, Mary (1998). Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill. London: Doubleday. ISBN978-03-85406-91-8.
Soames, Mary (2012). A Daughter's Tale: The Memoir of Winston and Clementine Churchill's Youngest Child. London: Transworld Publishers Limited. ISBN978-05-52770-92-7.
Imperial War Museum: Churchill War Rooms. Comprising the original underground War Rooms preserved since 1945, including the Cabinet Room, the Map Room and Churchill's bedroom, and the new Museum dedicated to Churchill's life.