When the cameras were rolling, President George Bush was fond of saying that he was not the emotional type. But with a pen in his hand, he expansively let out his heartfelt and innermost feelings.

Mr. Bush favored the handwritten letter. He wrote them by the hundreds to family, friends, critics, colleagues and contemporaries. To read them is to take in a brief history of the second half of the 20th century — stories of war and peace, victory and defeat, musings on culture and sports, and expressions of deeply personal sentiments.

As a public figure, Mr. Bush was rarely given to the kind of introspection that his letters reveal. Rather than write a memoir, as several of his friends had urged, he published a compendium of his letters, “All the Best,” which became a New York Times best seller.

Here are some highlights from the book that help to tell his life story.

During World War II, Heroism, Romance and Family

Mr. Bush enlisted in the Navy on June 12, 1942 — his 18th birthday — defying the wishes of his father, Prescott S. Bush, who wanted him to start college at Yale.

In an undated letter a few months later, while training in North Carolina, he wrote:

Dear Mum and Dad, … It is amazing how our moods change here. So many little things affect us. A cold Coke after drill can do more for one than you can imagine. I have never appreciated little things before. Ice cream, movies, a 15 minute rest, a letter, a compliment to our platoon.

He also wrote critically about the military’s approach to indoctrination:

The only thing wrong with this place is, they don’t realize the average intelligence. They hand out so much crude propaganda here. It is really sickening — Many of the men here realize it — also the intelligent officers. Stuff like ‘Kill the Japs — hate — murder’ and a lot of stuff like ‘you are the cream of American youth.’ … All the well educated fellows know what they are fighting for … and don’t need to be “brainwashed.”

Mr. Bush was also in throes of romance with his future wife, Barbara Pierce, and he wrote affectionately about her:

Dear Mum, Well today sure was wonderful … I met Barbara at the Inn at 12 … She looked too cute for words — really beautiful.

And he was ever the dutiful son:

Dear Mum, Gosh it was wonderful hearing your voice today — It was swell of you to call. Dear Mum, … I don’t think that it is entirely wrong for a girl to be kissed by a boy. Let us take this famous case of Pierce v. Bush summer ’42. I kissed Barbara and am glad of it.

Mr. Bush then began to put dates on his letters, and the young woman whom he kissed by Dec. 12, 1943, was his fiancée:

I love you, precious, with all my heart and to know that you love me means my life. How often I have thought about the immeasurable joy that will be ours some day.

The tone was much more somber on Sept. 3, 1944, when Mr. Bush told his parents of his plane being shot down over the Pacific. Two of Mr. Bush’s crew members died in the attack.