On Winston Churchill's first day as prime minister, Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would rage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold the country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally - and willing to fight to the end. Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless." It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it's also an intimate domestic drama set against the backdrop of Churchill's prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports - some released only recently - Larson provides a new lens on London's darkest year through the day-to-day experiences of Churchill and those closest to him: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela's illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisors in Churchill's "Secret Circle," to whom he turns in the hardest moments. This book takes listeners out of today's political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when - in the face of unrelenting horror - Churchill's eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.