The human condition as it exists today in both the spiritual and material sense has been formed by the interaction and dynamics of great individuals with the mass social movements and societal gyrations that make up the long human story. Through such dialogues has the civilising march of man been undertaken and the current situation, however unsatisfactory it may still be for the bulk of our species, been formed. It is unquestioningly correct; however, to recount from the lessons of history the overwhelming impact those individuals have had on this civilising process. It is therefore put forward that in the dialogue between the mass and the great man (or woman), the formative influencing power rests with the individual. Without such leaders the entire world would be no more than an inchoate mass of tangled confusion, devoid of structure or purpose. Our environment would still be, as some Victorian philosophers would have it, “red in the tooth”.

Though these great leaders clambered above the chattering mass to lead, not always efficaciously but usually excitedly the human race in one direction, there is no point in deifying these extraordinary individuals. Through great exertions, massive intellect, cunning, innovation or unseemly percipience they have exhibited very human flaws and all made very human mistakes throughout their travails. We should remember that the structure of the brain is roughly similar for each animal in our group, and the greatest just seem to use this engine more effectively. As a colleague of Churchill’s once commented citing William James, the great American whom developed many principle strands of American philosophical and psychological theory:

“…men of genius differ from ordinary men not in any innate quality of the brain, but in the aims and objects on which they concentrate and in the degree of concentration they manage to achieve. Winston Churchill possessed a power of concentration amounting almost to obsession. It gave his purpose a momentum which often proved irresistible....Though he was the most human of all human beings he was himself too extraordinary to know how ordinary people worked.”

Churchill is but one example of leadership genius tossing mankind onto different roads of endeavour. What this volume will set out to prove in both a scholarly and straight forward manner, is that without question, Churchill was the most important political figure of the 20th century and probably the most influential individual in the course of our development in the past century. This is not to belittle the other greats of our age -- the Russell’s, the Einstein’s, the Fermi’s, the King’s, the Mandela’s, the Mother Teresa’s and John Paul’s and others that will be discussed, including unfortunately the ignominious agents of evil such as Hitler, Stalin and their ilk.

The purpose of this volume is to provide some coherent meaning to what happened in the century past and why the world is on the verge of a Liberalising order, at the threshold of freeing millions of people, and their creative energies in the establishment of a better world. Without Churchill, this would not have been possible or at least would never have happened as soon. Without Churchill and his nervous genius many of the aspects of modern life that we take for granted would have been delayed or never pushed into being. His is the story not just of a war leader, but of a politician that was active in many areas outside of war, intent on the establishment of a world order utilising Liberal principles. He was the last icon of the past, the symbol of a changing world, the portal to the past, yet the vision to the future. He represented the humble hopes of the mass, but was of aristocratic ilk and lineage. He respected democratic governance applied with prudence and disdained politicking for the sake of power. He enshrined the establishment of helping the common man escape to higher successes, based on hard work and merit, yet he fully appreciated the differences between humans that would elevate some above others.

A full democrat he never lost sight of the purpose that politics served – namely the progress of the human race. To cast Churchill in the role of the 20th century’s most influential Leader is to elevate him into the sublime league of bygone icon’s such as Thucydides, Alexander, Pericles, Octavian, Charlemagne, Sh’ih Tih and so on, and thereby ennoble his activity in the spheres of writing, soldiering, politicking, statesmanship and democratic resolve to a level rarely achieved by a Leader of any age.

To do such a service is dangerous but necessary if we are to fully implement what the human race has an abundance of - potential - and to avoid the criminal follies of our ancestors. One does not require foreknowledge of Churchill or a deep understanding of history to appreciate the role of Churchill and great leaders in the establishment of our current societal structures. One only needs the curiosity to comprehend that the 20th century - one of the most fearsome and difficult and interesting in mankind’s march - has been a watershed and turning point in our development.

Our world in every way is vastly greater and different than any prognosticator could have envisioned in 1900. The fact that at least in the West that we have a free, open and civilised society is due in large measure to the social and political vision of Churchill. And I speak not just of his War record, but the entire breadth and degree of his political and societal vision that encapsulated the great principles of progress and power, and which sadly, we see lacking in our divisive and sometimes drifting world: “We see, then, how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power or of the hands. For have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been decayed and demolished?”

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