Great Contemporaries

Insightful biographical sketches of major historical figures of the twentieth century, from the incomparable British statesman.
Winston S.Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on the strength of "his mastery of historical and biographical description." Nowhere is that mastery more evident than in Great Contemporaries-which features Churchill's profiles of many of the major figures of his time.
These short biographies cover political and cultural personalities ranging from Franklin D.Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Lawrence of Arabia, and Leon Trotsky to Charlie Chaplin, H.G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, and George Bernard Shaw. This edition includes five previously uncollected essays and a number of photographs, plus an enlightening introduction and annotations by noted Churchill scholar James W.Muller.
Written in the decade before Churchill became prime minister, these essays 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 these subjects as Churchill approaches them with a measuring eye, finding their limitations at least as revealing as their merits.

Winston S. Churchill was born in 1874 and was one of the most significant leaders of the twentieth century. He acted as a war correspondent during the Boer War and after his capture and release, Churchill became a national hero in England, parlaying that celebrity into a political career becoming elected to the Conservative Party. Churchill joined the Liberal Party in 1904. Churchill's career was volatile during the 1920s and '30s owing, in part, to his support of the abdication of King Edward VIII, but when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, Churchill was reappointed Lord of the Admiralty. In 1940, Churchill succeeded Chamberlain as Prime Minister and remained in office until 1945. Churchill successfully guided the nation through World War II, mobilizing and inspiring the British people as well as forging strong ties with American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Churchill remained in Parliament and was re-elected in 1951 and did not resign until 1955 when he was eighty years old. After retirement, Churchill remained incredibly active, spending his time writing, publishing The History of the English Speaking People and more. That work, along with his six volume history of World War II and the World Crisis, his history of World War I, earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. In 1963 Churchill was made an honorary UScitizen. He died in 1965 at the age of ninety.