Six Minutes in May: How Churchill Unexpectedly Became Prime Minister - Hardcover

"History books should give us insight and information, surprise and entertainment, and allow us to see the world, an incident or a character differently. Nicholas Shakespeare’s Six Minutes in May delivers in abundance." (Anthony Sattin Observer, Best Books of 2017)

"Unputdownable... Us[es] new evidence with a novelist’s feeling for personality and atmosphere" (John Gray Guardian, Best Books of 2017)

"Of the abundant new books on the Second World War, Nicholas Shakespeare’s Six Minutes in May...takes the prize. The familiar story of how Churchill unexpectedly became prime minister in 1940 has never been told so amusingly, nor in such detail" (Simon Heffer Daily Telegraph, Best History Books of 2017)

"Nicholas Shakespeare’s Six Minutes in May: How Churchill Unexpectedly Became Prime Minister...is as gripping as a novel. Apart from being meticulously researched, thoroughly original and beautifully written, the book is an important reminder of the fact that the direction of history can change in a heartbeat" (Peter Frankopan History Today, Best History Books of 2017)

"An eloquent study in how quickly the political landscape can change -- and history with it" (The Economist, Books of the Year 2017)

"A superbly written drama... Shakespeare's research is thorough and he has a novelist's flair for depicting the characters and motives of great and lesser men...Fascinating." (Book of the Week The Times)

"Shakespeare brings both meticulous research and fictional artistry to illuminate the machinery of government under extreme stress and the abrasive conflict of large, self-confident personalities. It's a superb achievement." (Ian McEwan)

"Riveting...never less than gripping. But the real delight of its book is the convincing, and often revelatory, portraits of the main protagonists." (Evening Standard.)

"Brilliant, meticulous...This scintillating joy of a book ― with a military narrative of British shame as well handled as William Dalrymple’s Return of a King, and a treatment of 20th-century British politics, romance, humiliation and desire as grandly realised as Anthony Powell’s great novel sequence....Shakespeare’s narrative is not just more reliable than Churchill’s, but more fun." (Spectator)

"Superb: far and away the best account of the moment which changed our national life and the world, and filled with extraordinary new details. Shakespeare brings a novelist's eye to the characters he writes about, but it is the extraordinary way he marshals his material, far more extensive than I've come across before, which makes this book quite simply magnificent." (John Simpson)

London, early May 1940: Britain is on the brink of war and Neville Chamberlain’s government is about to fall. It is hard for us to imagine the Second World War without Winston Churchill taking over at the helm, but in SIX MINUTES IN MAY Nicholas Shakespeare shows how easily events could have gone in a different direction.

The first land battle of the war was fought in the far north, in Norway. It went disastrously for the Allies and many blamed Churchill. Yet weeks later he would rise to the most powerful post in the country, overtaking Chamberlain and the favourite to succeed him, Lord Halifax.

It took just six minutes for MPs to cast the votes that brought down Chamberlain. Shakespeare shows us both the dramatic action on the battlefield in Norway and the machinations and personal relationships in Westminster that led up to this crucial point. Uncovering fascinating new research and delving deep into the backgrounds of the key players, he has given us a new perspective on this critical moment in our history.