A History of the English-Speaking Peoples is a four-volume history of Britain and its former colonies and possessions throughout the world, written by Winston Churchill, covering the period from Caesar's invasions of Britain (55 BC) to the end of the Second Boer War (1902) It was started in 1937 and finally published 1956–1958, delayed several times by war and his work on other texts. London: Cassell and Company, Ltd., 1956. First edition, signs of wear and discolouration in places. Churchill, who excelled in the study of history as a child and whose mother was American, had a firm belief in a so-called "special relationship" between the people of Britain and its Commonwealth (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, etc.) united under the Crown, and the people of the United States who had broken with the Crown and gone their own way. His book thus dealt with the resulting two divisions of the "English-speaking peoples". Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955.