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A collection of 23 original newspaper articles that present the variety and depth of Churchill''s reflections on the largest questions facing humanity. First published in 1932, this wide-ranging volume of essays touches on cartoons, hobbies, spies, flying, elections, economics and modern science, providing fresh ways of exploring Churchill and his perspectives.Published in the Bloomsbury Revelations series to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Churchill''s birth, expertly annotated with a new foreword by Churchill scholar, James W. Muller, this volume is a bridge to Churchill''s autobiographical works, falling between and The Second World War.
List of contents
Introduction
Editor's Note on the Edition
Preface
A Second Choice
Cartoons and Cartoonists
Consistency in Politics
Personal Contacts
The Battle of Sidney Street
The German Splendour
My Spy Story
With the Grenadiers
'Plugstreet'
The U-Boat War
The Dover Barrage
Ludendorff's 'All – or Nothing'
A Day with Clemenceau
In the Air
Election Memories
The Irish Treaty
Parliamentary Government and the Economic Problem
Shall We All Commit Suicide?
Mass Effects in Modern Life
Fifty Years Hence
Moses
Hobbies
Painting as a Pastime
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
About the author
Sir Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on two occasions, from 1940-1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Celebrated as one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century, he was also a gifted orator, statesman and historian. The author of more than 40 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 has edited new editions of Churchill's Great Contemporaries and Thoughts and Adventures, available in the Bloomsbury Revelations series.
Summary
First published in 1932, Thoughts and Adventures is Churchill’s most philosophical book. It conveys the extraordinary variety and depth of the statesman’s mature thoughts on questions facing modern men and women. Written in what biographers have called Churchill’s “wilderness years,” this wide-ranging volume of essays touches on cartoons, hobbies, spies, flying, elections, economics, and modern science. Reading it is like being invited to dinner at his country seat at Chartwell, where the soup was limpid, Pol Roger Champagne flowed, the pudding had a theme, and Churchill entertained lucky visitors with vivid conversation.
Published in the Bloomsbury Revelations series to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Churchill’s birth, with a new foreword and illuminating annotations by James W. Muller, this collection of 23 articles, most of them originally published in magazines and newspapers, revives Churchill’s unforgettable prose and unmatched insights for a new generation of readers.
