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Winston S. Churchill

Great Contemporaries: Churchill Reflects on FDR, Hitler, Kipling, Chaplin, Balfour, and Other Giants of His Age Paperback – May 11, 2012

by Winston Churchill (Author), James W. Muller (Editor)

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Book 3 of 5: Winston S. Churchill Essays and Other Works

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Churchill Sizes Up the Giants of His Age, Offers Wisdom for Our Own

Winston Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on the strength of “his mastery of historical and biographical description.” Nowhere is that mastery more evident than in Great Contemporaries(1937), which features Churchill’s brief lives of those he called “Great Men of our age.”

ISI Books is proud to publish a brand-new, illustrated edition of this neglected classic. Great Contemporaries profiles towering figures ranging from Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Lawrence of Arabia, and Leon Trotsky to Charlie Chaplin, H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, and George Bernard Shaw. This edition—the first in twenty years—includes five essays that have never appeared in any previous version, some thirty black-and-white photographs, and an enlightening introduction and annotations by noted Churchill scholar James W. Muller.

Written in the decade before Churchill became prime minister, the essays in Great Contemporaries focus on the challenges of statecraft at a time when the democratic revolution was toppling older regimes based on tradition and aristocratic privilege. Churchill’s keen observations take on new importance in our own age of roiling political change.

Ultimately, Great Contemporaries provides fascinating insight into the statesman’s perspective. Churchill’s objective is clear: he tries to learn from these giants what makes a man great. He approaches his subjects with a measuring eye, finding their limitations at least as revealing as their merits.

This handsome new edition of Great Contemporaries brings back Churchill’s unmatched insights and unforgettable prose for a new generation of readers and leaders.

Book 3 of 5

Winston S. Churchill Essays and Other Works
Print length

504 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Intercollegiate Studies Institute
Publication date

May 11, 2012
Dimensions

6 x 1.4 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1935191993
ISBN-13

978-1935191995
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“By far the most important, thoughtful edition of Churchill’s famous personality sketches ever published . . . The indispensable ‘desert island’ text for any marooned Churchillian.”
—Finest Hour

About the Author

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) served twice as prime minister of the United Kingdom, held numerous political and cabinet positions, fought in wars on four continents, and wrote more than forty books. In 1953 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

About the Editor

James W. Muller, professor of political science at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, is academic chairman of the Churchill Centre, a by-fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and a recipient of the Farrow Award for Excellence in Churchill Studies. He is the editor of Winston Churchill’s Thoughts and Adventures, also available from ISI Books.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Intercollegiate Studies Institute; 1st edition (May 11, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 504 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1935191993
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1935191995
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.65 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.4 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #73,165 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #207 in Historical European Biographies (Books)
- #542 in European History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
103 ratings

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Winston S. Churchill

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Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965) has been called 'the greatest Briton'. An international statesman, orator, biographer, historian, author and Nobel Prize winner, his works remain in print with the world's leading publishers.

Educated at Harrow and Sandhurst, Winston spent several years in the army before becoming a newspaper correspondent and then an MP. His cabinet positions included First Lord of the Admiralty at the outbreak of the First World War and later Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940 and for five years led Britain though its 'finest hour'. Defeated in the July 1945 election, he was Leader of the Opposition until re-elected Prime Minister in 1951. He was knighted in 1953, the same year he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He stepped down as Prime Minister in 1955 and remained an MP until 1964.

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4.5 out of 5

103 global ratings

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Anthony Calabrese

Churchill on "great" men

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 6, 2004

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Although Winston Churchill is remember best as a statesman (and in my mind the greatest man of the 20th Century), he made his living through his pen. Churchill though of aristocratic background, was not extremely wealthy. While he could have survived on the family fortune, his expensive tastes and zest for living would have bankrupted him. So he turned to writing to earn his living.

Great Contemporaries is a series of essays written between 1929 and 1937 on the "great" leaders of the day. Churchill knew many of these leaders personally, and is able to supplement what might otherwise be a dry recitation of the facts of a career with personal stories and vignettes.

Perhaps the most famous of the essays is on "Hitler and his Choice, 1935." This essay is often cited by neo-Nazis and far leftists as proof that Churchill actually admired Hitler. But finally getting the chance to read the essay shows that any such analysis takes Churchill's words extremely out of context. Hitler was to be Churchill's great antagonist in the coming decade. In 1935, Churchill recognized that Hitler was facing a choice - would Hitler take a moderate road and perhaps be remembered as the leader who restored German honor, or who Hitler take the road of war. Churchill ends the essay with a warning, that German rearmament was continuing, and, of course, tragically, Churchill's misgivings were played out.

One problem, with this book is that many of the "great" men described are almost forgotten today, at least outside their home countries. Men like the Earl of Rosebery (Prime Minister in the 1890s) or King Alfosno XIII of Spain probably make no impression on the American reader while George Curzon is remembered, if at all, as the man who roughly proposed the border between Poland and the Soviet Union (the "Curzon Line").

The book includes essays on well-remembered men such as George Bernard Shaw, Clemenceau and Churchill's protégé T.E. Lawrence (better known as "Lawrence of Arabia"). These essays, full of personal remembrances by Churchill, are well worth the time.

22 people found this helpful

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Thinker Writer

The best book written by Churchill... Must read.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 11, 2014

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This is a book I grew up with. There is a history and an emotional attachment. Was given to me by my dad with markings on some pages that I memorise for the beauty of the language. There were beautiful pictures too. It was a wonderful edition. Somehow I lost it. Somebody borrowed from my dad and it never came back. Tried in 2006 to buy the same book on Amazon and Ebay. I did find the exactly the same first or so UK edition but it was in hundreds of dollars. So with a heavy heart I gave up. But then I got this US edition at amazon. I loved it and gave it to my kids to memorise the same passages so that the language and its construction goes into the system which you will draw on when you sit down to write. You know Mr. Churchill writes very well and it is one of the best books he has written. I love the book. If people have not read it don't know what they have missed.

17 people found this helpful

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Rose

Historic treasure

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 31, 2014

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As a commentator notes, it is our good fortune that someone who was a major part of the making of 20th century history was also a gifted writer. This book is a jewel, with Churchill's insights on major figures viewed from his unique inside vantage point. The prose is a bit flowery and at times even Shakespearean, but still manages to be conversational. He weaves in literary references that set the tone on a classical and historic plane, sharing his stellar educational background and knowledge. In all, it is uniquely Churchillian. The piece on Kitchener is especially moving, as Churchill delves into the ironies of their relationship and its evolution over the years. This is a book to be kept close as one of the greats, and a deeply satisfying read.

12 people found this helpful

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Charles Whitmore

Wonderful character sketches

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 4, 2019

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Each individual brought to life, sometimes so perceptively as to rival Virginia Woolf, but with Churchill's own distinctive language and preferences. He treats political rivals sympathetically and generously, but gives each a different and distinctive flavor. Fun even for figures now largely forgotten (e.g., Lord Rosebery), and sometimes fascinating as with his take on Lawrence of Arabia. He views true enemies like Trotsky venomously, but such one-dimensional portraits are rare. Even the Kaiser and Hindenburg are seen in interesting light.

5 people found this helpful

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Geoff Puterbaugh

Excellent reading

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 11, 2013

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(Note: this book was not written by Robert A. Smith, but by Winston Churchill!)

Written in his usual admirable style, these are Churchill's extended character sketches of the great men of his time, ranging from the very well-known (Trotsky, Hitler, FDR, Lawrence of Arabia) to people you have probably never heard of, such as the first Earl of Birkenhead and the Earl of Rosebery. After reading them, you will wish you had known them... Not one person in the U.S. Congress can pass comparison with "F.E.," the first Earl of Birkenhead. These were largely men raised as aristocrats, very well educated, and with huge personal abilities of their own. The chapter on Asquith will open your eyes.

It makes our leaders look like midgets.

Highly recommended, indeed!

7 people found this helpful

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 30, 2020

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WC writes and analyzes what is doing on... right now!!!

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SRdto

A BARGAIN FOR ONE OF CHURCHILL'S BEST

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 4, 2018

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I wanted this book, but the prices were all high. Then this MP# CD appeared as an option for a very reasonable price. I'm delighted.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Number13

Great Contemporaries

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 1, 2014

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`Great Contemporaries' is a fascinating, informative and enjoyable series of 22 "essays on Great Men of our age" which Churchill wrote during the 1930s. To read them is to hear that unforgettable voice describing to you the people he knew and the critical events of three decades.

The majority of the subjects were political or military figures of the preceding thirty years, sometimes friends and colleagues, sometimes parliamentary opponents, and the book sparkles with personal insights gained from life both in Westminster and on the Western Front.

As the various anniversaries of events in the 1914-18 war are approaching, this book is also an excellent, concise briefing on many of the British and French leaders with whom Churchill served: Asquith, Balfour, Haig, French and Fisher for Britain, Clemenceau and Foch for France. Naturally, his profiles of the Kaiser and Hindenburg were written from (to say the least) a greater distance.

This is a diverse collection; among others encountered are George Bernard Shaw, Parnell, Philip Snowden, King George V, Lawrence of Arabia, Baden-Powell and, viewed from 1935 with the prescience that most people at that time still chose to ignore, Hitler.

The most personal contribution is the essay on his great friend Frederick `F.E.' Smith. The opening line illustrates one of the great strengths of this collection; written for busy readers of newspapers, each essay seizes your attention and holds it. "A hundred years ago, Thomas Smith was the best runner and the most redoubtable knuckle-fighter in the West Riding of Yorkshire." After such an introduction, could any reader not wish to read on and discover how his great-grandson "became Lord Chancellor of England."?

This edition is a reprint of that of 1942, which extended but rarely altered the original 1937 collection. Churchill assumed his original readers would be aware of the major issues of the day and so does not reiterate every detail of each referenced fact or person. However, with his explanation and analysis of significant events in the lives he is describing, and the many interactions between the "Great Contemporaries", it is not difficult to absorb the political intrigues of a century ago through the prose and the almost spoken presence of the very greatest of their contemporaries.

5 people found this helpful

Rowan Lock

A ridiculously patronising edition

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 17, 2012

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In this review I have nothing bad to say about Churchill's writing, my complaints are about this publishers decision to cover at least half of every other page with legions of patronising annotations by a 'Churchill scholar' which pompously relate such rarefied and fascinating information as 'Karl Marx was a German political theorist, economist and philosopher who advocated Communism' (this in articles about Shaw and Trotsky!) and 'Joan of Arch was a French peasant girl who led the French army'. Not only is this information often unnecessary and sometimes irrelevant (the before mentioned note on Joan of Arch precedes to give a brief biography of her and a summary of the Hundred Years war) it also just looks terrible to turn the page and see another two attack formations of notes forcing the text up onto the top of the page. And by every page I mean every page, because Churchill constantly makes references all the time, which Muller proceeds to hunt down and pin down one after the other in what can only be an attempt at showing off.

Honestly, some respect for the readers intelligence might be expected considering how rare these essays are.

5 people found this helpful

Gilbert Michaud

great content awful cover

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 7, 2012

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yes new footnotes by paul h courtenay and text by muller . they added five new portraits to the already extended edition . first publisherd in 1937 . so fine great text . i just dony like that sick yellow color of ISI BOOKS ..

George Hope

Wonderfully up to date

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 22, 2015

Verified Purchase

Wonderfully up to date. Reading this book shows how so many problems we have now are the same as those of yesterday. Churchill's comments are particularly relevant for today.

One person found this helpful

George Hope

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 20, 2015

Verified Purchase

Well worth reading if only for the political comment which is often highly relevant for today.

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