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.