Few individuals personify the tumultuous story of the 20th century more than Winston Churchill. Great Britain’s most celebrated statesman, Churchill didn’t just live history—he made it. His was a fascinating journey that would take him from the dawn of the Edwardian Age to the dawn of Beatlemania; from the days when the British Empire ruled the seas to its twilight as the preeminent global power; and from the chaos of two world wars to the equally fraught tensions of the Cold War era.

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To follow Churchill on his epic course as a politician is to experience, on an intimate scale, the dramatic highs and lows of world history. It’s also a chance to honor the concepts of democracy and liberty he held so dear. Churchill’s life offers a stirring reminder of how, in times when freedom is threatened, people can still stand up to defend it.

Even still, too many biographies of Churchill are hagiographic, choosing to gloss over the many equally intriguing complexities of a man who both shaped and was shaped by the world around him. Just as important as Churchill’s championing of freedom were his moments of weakness, his political failures, and his personal struggles. Taken together, they all offer an invaluable context to both Churchill the man and Churchill the legend.

“Churchill rose to the occasion because that’s what great leaders do,” notes preeminent biographer, Professor Michael Shelden of Indiana State University. “That’s why his life will always be worth our attention. Whatever our political persuasion, we can learn from him.”

In How Winston Churchill Changed the World, enjoy a thorough, multifaceted exploration of Churchill’s life, accomplishments, complexities, and legacies. Over the span of 24 lectures that unfurl like a great story, you will delve into Churchill’s military leadership during World War I and World War II; his personal relationships with family and friends; his abiding passion for history, literature, and public speaking; and his political relationships with historical giants like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Queen Elizabeth II. With Professor Shelden as your authoritative guide, you’ll embark on an unforgettable adventure through the 20th century in the footsteps of the one man who helped not just Great Britain but all of humanity prevail during violent, dangerous times.

The Life and Times of a Master Statesman

Professor Shelden provides a biographer’s keen insights into Churchill and uses this course to help you arrive at an amazing conclusion: No matter how much you reveal about the man, Churchill in every way lives up to his legend.

How Winston Churchill Changed the World guides you chronologically through the life and times of this master statesman, taking you from the dawn of his political career to his final years in a much-changed geopolitical landscape.

The Early Years: Follow Churchill from his beginnings in the early 1900s as a young liberal statesman, his rise to the Admiralty in 1914 and his relentless push for an imposing naval force, and some of his disastrous miscalculations during World War I.

The Second World War: Discover why, more than any other British politician, Churchill denounced the rise of Adolf Hitler and why, after the breakout of war, he led the fight against the Nazis and refused to make peace with Hitler even when it seemed most prudent.

A Postwar Britain: Examine Churchill’s equally dramatic postwar career, when he was voted out of office and caught up in a time of political, social, and economic crisis, as well as two different cold wars—one with the Soviets and one with Britain’s Labour party.

As you tour the 20th century from Churchill’s perspective, you’ll get fascinating insights into his accomplishments and triumphs, including:

His diplomatic maneuverings with allies and foes;

His iconic public speeches (including his celebrated “Finest Hour” speech, which draws on lines from an Andrew Marvell poem);

His investment in Britain’s military (including his early championing of tanks and seaplanes); and

His early realizations of the dangers of both Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia.

Learning from Failure

Central to all 24 lectures of How Winston Churchill Changed the World is the profound sense of history that was so important to Churchill’s philosophy as a politician and a leader.

As Professor Shelden puts it, “Knowing what happened—and where it happened—was not trivia for Churchill. It was part of the process of knowing your place in time, of understanding how what you do today will affect tomorrow and how it will measure up to events of yesterday.”

These lectures offer a more contextualized perspective on Churchill’s life and career with an appreciation of this kind of historical knowledge. As a result, Professor Shelden doesn’t shy away from examining Churchill’s failures and how, on occasion, his preference for the backward glance of history distorted his view of the future, leading to missteps and disasters, including his failure to understand the rise of independence movements in the British colonies, his underestimation of Japan’s strength in the Pacific Theater, and his controversial World War II bombing campaigns in German cities like Dresden.

Both “Great Man” and “Everyman”

One of Professor Shelden’s skills in these lectures, aside from his incomparable scholarship, is his ability to make Churchill feel both bigger than life and entirely relatable, both a “great man” and “everyman.”

A celebrated biographer, Professor Shelden is the author of Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill, as well as several other biographies of writers like George Orwell and Mark Twain. His literary background makes him the perfect biographer of Churchill, who himself was a celebrated and respected writer who went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.

“It’s not too bold a thing to say that it was Churchill who admirably filled the post of poet laureate without any official reason to do so,” says Professor Shelden, “taking his prose to poetic heights in his best speeches, and moving his audiences in the way that great verse often does.”

Poet, historian, statesman, soldier, prime minister, husband—Winston Churchill played many roles throughout his life. And How Winston Churchill Changed the World brings all these varied roles together to create a fascinating, multilayered biography.

By the end of the final lecture, you’ll discover that Churchill’s most enduring legacy is anchored in something deeply personal and timeless: his individual stance as a champion of freedom when the world was at a tipping point between darkness and light, and as someone whose voice and courage helped to shift the balance toward the light.