WINSTON CHURCHILL began to write the first of what were to be the six volumes of The Second World War in 1946. It was a work he had expected to postpone to a later stage of his life, since he had looked forward in I945 to extending his wartime leadership into the peace.The rejection of his party by the electorate was a heavy blow, which might have dulled his urge to write. But resilience was perhaps the most pronounced of his traits of character, and he had already writ-ten the history of another great war in which he had been a principal actor. Once committed to the task, he attacked it with an energy,enthusiasm and power of organisation which would have been re-markable in a professional historian of half his age.