Thoughts and Adventures: Churchill Reflects on Spies, Cartoons, Flying and the Future

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.

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 of Political Science at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, where he has taught since 1983, and is 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, and served as a White House Fellow in 1983-84 and was an Academic Visitor at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1988-89. He has taught courses in statesmanship, political philosophy, and American political thought.