Winston Churchill is best known as Britain’s leader during the second world war, but he was also a painter and a prolific writer. “The Gathering Storm”, published in 1948, is the first volume of “The Second World War”, his brilliantly written history, which was among the works for which he won the Nobel prize for literature in 1953. Churchill probes the origins of the war; his main argument is that the Allies’ appeasement of Germany, which had lost the first world war, set the scene for another conflict. “The crimes of the vanquished find their background and their explanation, though not of course, their pardon, in the follies of the victors,” he writes. Churchill wrote “The Gathering Storm” with the intellectual flair of a gifted historian and the emotion of a participant. It is rich with contemporary resonances. As in the 1930s, today democratic nations are debating how to stand up to authoritarian governments, including those of Russia and China. Rarely do histories win so many accolades, though Churchill was not wholly pleased when he was awarded the Nobel. “I remember vividly his early and touching joy, which turned to indifference when he learned it was for literature and not for peace,” recalled Anthony Montague Brown, Churchill’s private secretary.

I plan on buying this book because it sounds as if it’s a beautifully written reflection of how wars get started. I think that the economist is a great place to find interesting books that are well written, and inform us of what’s going on in the world. Though this book was written a long time ago, it still seems quite current, which is frightening. We are still not paying attention to the dangers of war.