Winston S. Churchill won the Nobel Prize for Literature for “his mastery of historical and biographical description.” Nowhere is that mastery more evident than in Great Contemporaries, first published in 1937.

Written in the decade before Churchill became prime minister, these portraits of notable figures of his age offer wisdom for our own. With keen observations and telling anecdotes, Churchill points out what he learned from them about greatness and also their limitations. His subjects range from Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Lawrence of Arabia, and Leon Trotsky to Charlie Chaplin, H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, and George Bernard Shaw.

Published in the Bloomsbury Revelations series to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Churchill's birth, this is the most complete edition, including five additional essays, more than thirty photographs, with a new foreword and annotations by Churchill scholar James W. Muller. This volume revives Churchill’s unmatched insights and unforgettable prose for a new generation of readers.

An opportunity to rediscover these important essays by Churchill about the figures he felt shaped his times. The volume provides valuable insights into Churchill and his great contemporaries. -- Allen Packwood, Churchill Archives Centre

Sir Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Celebrated as one of the greatest statesmen of the twentieth century, he was a gifted orator and historian. The author of more than forty books, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 and in 1963 was made an honorary citizen of the United States.

James W. Muller is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, and Chairman of the Board of Academic Advisers of the International Churchill Society. Educated at Harvard University and the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, he is a by-fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. His two-volume edition of Churchill’s early book The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan won the 2021 Churchill Literary Award. He also edited a new edition of Churchill’s Thoughts and Adventures, available in the Bloomsbury Revelations series.