Great Contemporaries: Churchill Reflects on FDR, Hitler, Kipling, Chaplin, Balfour, and Other Giants of His Age

2011 | Biography

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 \u201chis mastery of historical and biographical description.\u201d Nowhere is that mastery more evident than in Great Contemporaries(1937), which features Churchill\u2019s brief lives of those he called \u201cGreat Men of our age.\u201d 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 editionuthe first in twenty yearsuincludes 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\u2019s keen observations take on new importance in our own age of roiling political change. Ultimately, Great Contemporaries provides fascinating insight into the statesman\u2019s perspective. Churchill\u2019s 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\u2019s unmatched insights and unforgettable prose for a new generation of readers and leaders.

Winston S. Churchill (Author)

Paul E. Gottfried (Author)

James W. Muller (Author)