摘要：David Reynolds has done it again. In Command of History is a book about the writing of six books— Winston Churchill’s multivolume memoirs about his experiences in World War II, to be exact. In this carefully researched and nuanced study, Reynolds shows that this once and future prime minister wrote his account with three different considerations in mind. First, like any author, he wanted to make money. Churchill was fully aware that fame is a fickle thing and that he needed to strike quickly if he wanted to maximize his profits. Second, like any major political figure, he wanted to defend decisions he had made. Finally, and unlike most political memoirists, he wrote with an eye to his political future. He was still an active member of the House of Commons and often molded his writings to service his political interests as he saw them in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
