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Having spent over 20 years working as an archivist with the Winston Churchill papers and the other document collections housed at the Churchill Archives Centre (including serving as director of the centre since 2002), Allen Packwood is eminently qualified to write about Churchill’s war leadership. Rather than provide a chronological narrative of Churchill in the Second World War, Packwood in his How Churchill Waged War: The Most Challenging Decisions of the Second World War seeks to study ten specific strategic, political, and diplomatic decisions made by Churchill as prime minister during the conflict. Devoting one chapter to each question, he considers:

• Why did Churchill choose to become Minister of Defence as well as Prime Minister?
• How did Churchill respond to the collapse of his ally [France]?
• Why did Churchill embark on his Middle Eastern strategy?
• How did Churchill approach the Soviet Union and the United States?
• How did Churchill survive the fall of Singapore?
• Why did Churchill sack General Auchinleck?
• Why did Churchill embrace unconditional surrender?
• How did Churchill cope with the build-up to D-Day?
• What did Churchill hope to achieve in Poland and Greece?
• Why did Churchill fight the 1945 election so aggressively?

In the book’s concluding chapter, Packwood returns to the title of the volume and considers the question “How did Winston wage war?” Churchill’s method of waging the war was to adopt “a practical approach, fixed on achieving immediate results” and that “his preferred response was to live in the moment: to prioritise, debate and then act upon the evidence in front of him.” In making war-time decisions, such as attacking the French fleet in 1940, supporting the Atlantic Charter and unconditional surrender, allying with Stalin, and flying to Athens in 1944, Packwood finds Churchill “time and again  […] chose not to worry about the possible long-term implications, but to win the immediate battle.” As Prime Minister he fought the war, “One battle at a time. That was how Winston waged war. Nor did he pretend it was otherwise.” An interesting and  well-considered study which makes an excellent contribution to both the study of Churchill as well as British strategic decision-making in the Second World War.