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There are almost no disclosures of inside information (however much new material there is in the book) which drastically alter the contemporary picture of events. There is no spirit of now-it-can-be-told. There is a continuity of history; the war was what it was reported to have been; the official information that he now releases simply fills in the account. The zest with which he writes of the British navy, and the clarity with which he describes naval battles, despite the fact that they are the most interesting part of The Gathering Storm, make it seem possible that in the future his absorption with the navy will seem his greatest limitation; perhaps it was the one quality that distorted his rounded view of the war. His personal anecdotes are sparingly chosen and are as illuminating as the stories that have carried across the centuries in the histories of Caesar and Tacitus.
The Motives of Governing. It may be that the final value of The Gathering Storm will be in his picture of the satisfaction and motives of governing. At a time when dictators clung to office because the alternative was to be killed, or when the officials of democratic countries followed wrong policies because they feared defeat in election, Churchill's reports of the actual mechanics of governing, what chances he was willing to take and what risks he could not venture, are in themselves a handbook of political science. They are as worldly as Machiavelli without his cynicism, and as wise as Lincoln, lacking only Lincoln's tenderness, and his doomed and tragic devotion. This book is a major document of our times.