Sir Winston Churchill was one of the most impressive individuals to serve as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. His political ideology, leadership style, writings, personal views, and artistic ability have been extensively studied by great biographers, including Sir Martin Gilbert, Roy Jenkins, William Manchester, Henry Pelling, and Andrew Roberts.
Yet, like other leaders before and after him, there remain little nuggets of information about Churchill that haven’t been thoroughly analyzed. One such is the importance of friendship in Churchill’s personal and political career.
That’s what makes John von Heyking’s Comprehensive Judgement and Absolute Selfishness: Winston Churchill on Politics as Friendship a new and vital component of Churchillian study. A professor of political science at the University of Lethbridge in Canada, von Heyking is the author of several books—including, notably, one on friendship as defined by Aristotle and Plato. In his view, Churchill’s “concern for friends and for friendship always seems to hover above, or in the background, of his statecraft and in his thinking about statecraft and politics.” Comprehensive Judgement and Absolute Selfishness “brings that background into focus” and proves that “friendship plays a central role in [Churchill’s] moral vision of politics.”
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