Winston Churchill (1874–1965)

I have a fondness for ornate, old-fashioned pen-portrait essays like those to be found in Great Contemporaries by Winston Churchill. A great benefit of the book is that Churchill knew many of the historical and political figures he discusses personally, and so such essays can be coloured by interesting anecdote and personal insight.

Articles on his contemporaries from British politics naturally form the bulk of the book (former prime ministers and the like). At first glance, these look less interesting, but the personal side of things Churchill is able to give provides them with some uniqueness and colour. However, it does also mean Churchill ends up writing more like a politician than an essayist – safely, diplomatically, and with an eye on posterity for himself.

There's a lot of magnanimity in the book, not only for Churchill's domestic allies and opponents, but also, surprisingly, for the likes of Kaiser Wilhelm and Adolf Hitler. Churchill excuses the Kaiser much of the blame for the start of World War One and, writing in 1935, credits Hitler for Germany's revival and suggests that, while the outlook is bleak and the character sinister, he may yet prove to be an asset to his country and the world.

Of course, we now know that not to be the case, but the excessive political even-handedness of the pieces does limit their interest today (an entertaining condemnation of Trotsky is an outlier in the book), for Churchill is not necessarily giving us his full views. He writes well, even if he overdoes it sometimes with the lofty prose we know from his wartime speeches (an essay on King George V lays it on very thick), but nor is he at the level of bold mythologising we can find in William Bolitho's Twelve Against the Gods – a gold standard for this sort of thing.

Ultimately, Great Contemporaries is a dated book that could have retained a stature if it had not so effectively restrained itself. By enabling Churchill's caution, diplomacy and indulgence, rather than allowing his boldness, humour and energy to flourish, the book maintains itself for modern readers largely as a curiosity (particularly for that Hitler essay) rather than a commentary.… (more)

This is one of four books recommended by The Economist to understand AI and it's implications. The key book was The Coming Wave by Suleyman. The other two were The Candy House by Jennifer Egan, and Queen of Angels by Greg Bear. Both science fiction set in the near future and dramatising the effects of AI and biological developments. The fourth was, surprisingly, this one. Here Churchill describes the complacency and refusal of the British populace and politicians to recognise the growing threat of Hitler's rearming of Germany and his flaunting of the Treaty of Versailles. The analogy to todays' populace and politicians ignoring the threats posed by AI and bespoke life forms by DNA modification is clear. In Queen of Angels Greg Bear postulates a star ship with an AI to guide its exploration. Back on Earth they have a digital twin to shown what the remote one is doing. In The Candy House there is a technique to record and play back a person's memory, Perhaps where bio-technology is heading?… (more)