New Books in Biography & Memoir
Episodes
Richard Crockatt, “Einstein and Twentieth-Century Politics: A Salutary Moral Influence,” (Oxford UP, 2016)
01 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Richard Crockatt is an Emeritus Professor in the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia. His book, Einstein & Twentieth-Century P...
Steve Tripp, “Ty Cobb, Baseball, and American Manhood” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016)
30 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Many scholars of baseball and American sports have focused on Ty Cobb as an integral and controversial character in the history of baseball. However, ...
Alexandra Deutsch, “A Woman of Two Worlds: Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte” (Maryland Historical Society, 2016)
21 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte was a celebrity in 19th century America thanks in no small measure to her brief marriage to Napoleon Bonaparte’s young...
Tim Brady, “His Father’s Son: The Life of General Ted Roosevelt, Jr.” (NAL, 2017)
19 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Brady’s book His Father’s Son: The Life of General Ted Roosevelt, Jr. (NAL, 2017) is not just the biography of the eldest son and namesake of ...
Helen Rappaport, “Victoria: The Heart and Mind of a Young Queen” (Harper Design, 2017)
10 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The term historical fiction covers a wide range from what the mystery writer Josephine Tey once dubbed “history with conversation” to outright inv...
Paul McKenzie-Jones, “Clyde Warrior: Tradition, Community, and Red Power” (U. Oklahoma Press, 2015)
09 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Clyde Warrior was a Ponca Indian who in the 1960s was one of the founders of the “Red Power” movement for the rights of Native Americans. While hi...
Melissa Sweet, “Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016
06 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Readers of all ages know E. B. White’s work. Charlotte’s Web is the first book many children are read aloud. Elements of Style remains an essentia...
David Shafer, “Antonin Artaud” (Reaktion/U Chicago Press, 2016)
04 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
“Artaud lived with his neck placed firmly in the noose.” -Bauhaus* David Shafer’s new biography, Antonin Artaud (Reaktion Books and the Univer...
Owen McGee, “Arthur Griffith” (Merrion Press, 2015)
23 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
As the founder of Sinn Fin and a leading architect of Irish independence, Arthur Griffith ranks as one of the founding fathers of modern Ireland. In h...
Matt Houlbrook, “Prince of Tricksters: The Incredible True Story of Netley Lucas, Gentleman Crook” (U. of Chicago Press 2016)
19 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
How should we understand the interwar years in Britain? In Prince of Tricksters: The Incredible True Story of Netley Lucas, Gentleman Crook (Universit...
Bill V. Mullen, “W.E.B. Du Bois: Revolutionary Across the Color Line,” (Pluto Press, 2016)
17 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Born just five years after the abolition of slavery, W. E. B. Du Bois died the night before Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his I Have a Dream speec...
Jane Eppinga, “Henry Ossian Flipper: West Point’s First Black Graduate” (Wild Horse Press, 2015)
09 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The remarkable story of Henry Ossian Flipper, a young man born into slavery on the eve of the Civil War, and his struggle for recognition left its mar...
Jeremy Adelman, “Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman” (Princeton UP, 2013)
29 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Although defined throughout his professional career as a development economist, Albert O. Hirschman’s intellectual scope defied classification. In W...
Colin Holmes, “Searching for Lord Haw-Haw: The Political Lives of William Joyce” (Routledge, 2016)
18 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
During the Second World War millions of Britons tuned in nightly to hear the broadcasts of Lord Haw-Haw coming from Nazi Germany. Though the label was...
Scott Donaldson, “The Impossible Craft” Literary Biography” (Penn State UP, 2015)
08 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Admiring books that appeal to our hearts and souls, rather often we want to know more about the writers who create them. If a book is a dialogical and...
Michelle Markel, “Hillary Rodham Clinton: Some Girls Are Born to Lead/Brave Girl” (Balzer + Bray, 2016,2013)
03 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Michelle Markel, an award-winning author and former journalist who has written for The Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, talks about books sh...
Daniel Moran,”Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers” (U. of Georgia Press, 2016)
01 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Moran’s Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers (University of Georgia Press, 2016) provides a compelling inve...
James D. Boys, “Hillary Rising: The Politics, Persona, and Policies of a New American Dynasty” (Biteback Publishing, 2016)
31 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
James D. Boys is the author of Hillary Rising: The Politics, Persona, and Policies of a New American Dynasty (Biteback Publishing, 2016). Boys is an a...
John Bew, “Clement Attlee: The Man Who Made Modern Britain” (Oxford UP, 2017)
28 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
As Labour Party leader, member of Winston Churchill’s governing coalition during the Second World War, and prime minister of the epochal postwar gov...
Claudia Kalb, “Andy Warhol was a Hoarder: Inside the Mind of History’s Great Personalities” (Natl Geographic, 2016)
27 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
All humans endure their private struggles, but rarely do we know what troubles our most famous public figures until now. In her recent book, Andy Warh...
Robert Matzen, “Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe” (GoodKnight Books, 2016)
24 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Jimmy Stewart has a well-deserved reputation as one of the major stars of the classic film era. Yet his life was greatly affected by his experiences a...
April Dammann, “Corita Kent: Art and Soul: The Biography” (Angel City Press, 2015)
21 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Sister Mary Corita, IHM (1918-1986), was a beloved artist and teacher whose role as the rebel nun continues to inspire contemporary audiences. Corita ...
Debbie Levy, “I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark” (Simon and Schuster, 2016)
14 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has spent a lifetime disagreeing with inequality, arguing against unfair treatment, and standing up for what...
Thomas Aiello, “The Battle for the Souls of Black Folk: W.E.B. Dubois, Booker T. Washington, and the Debate that Shaped the Course of Civil Rights” (ABC-CLIO, 2016)
14 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Aiello is associate professor of history and African American studies at Valdosta State University. In The Battle for the Souls of Black Folk: ...
Gail Hornstein, “To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World: The Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann” (Other Books, 2005)
13 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The life of the German-born, pioneering American psychoanalyst, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, is intriguing enough in itself, but in the biography, To Redee...
Richard Bourke, “Empire and Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke” (Princeton UP, 2015)
30 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Richard Bourke, Professor in the History of Political Thought in the School of History at Queen Mary University of London, began developing his histor...
Marc Raboy, “Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World” (Oxford UP, 2016)
21 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Our modern networked world owes an oftentimes unacknowledged debt to Guglielmo Marconi. As Marc Raboy demonstrates in Marconi: The Man Who Networked t...
James Carl Nelson, “I Will Hold: The Story of USMC Legend Clifton B. Cates, From Belleau Wood to Victory in the Great War” (NAL, 2016)
16 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Best remembered as the nineteenth commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, Clifton B. Cates began his long and distinguished military career as a second l...
Liam Brockey, “The Visitor: Andre Palmeiro and the Jesuits in Asia” (Harvard UP, 2014)
11 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The transmission of a religion closely connected to a particular culture into a very different religious and cultural environment is a difficult act o...
Loki Mulholland, et.al. “She Stood for Freedom: The Untold Story of a Civil Rights Hero, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland” (Shadow Mountain, 2016)
08 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
“Anyone can make a difference. Find a problem, get some friends together, and go fix it. Remember you don’t have to change the world, just change ...
Matthew Pierce, “Twelve Infallible Men: The Imams and the Making of Shiism” (Harvard UP, 2016)
07 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The story of the martyrdom of Husayn, the prophet Muhammad’s grandson, is recounted annually around the world. More broadly, the communal retelling ...
Ellen Fitzpatrick, “The Highest Glass Ceiling: Women’s Quest for the American Presidency” (Harvard UP, 2016)
02 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Ellen Fitzpatrick is professor of history at the University of New Hampshire. Her book The Highest Glass Ceiling: Women’s Quest for the American Pre...
Charles Strozier, “Your Friend Forever, A. Lincoln: The Enduring Friendship of Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed” (Columbia UP, 2016)
02 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
When Abraham Lincoln wrote that the better part of one’s life consists of his friendships, it is likely that he had in mind his friendship with Josh...
Carol McCabe Booker, ed. “Alone Atop the Hill: The Autobiography of Alice Dunnigan” (U. of Georgia Press, 2015)
02 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Carol McCabe Booker is a Washington, D.C. attorney and former journalist. In the 1960s and 70s, she covered civil rights for the Voice of America, fre...
Robert K. Elder, et. al. “Hidden Hemingway: Inside the Ernest Hemingway Archives of Oak Park” (Kent State UP, 2016)
29 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Before the war, before the novels, before the four marriages and the safaris, the plane crashes and the bullfighting fascination, Ernest Hemingway was...
Carol Gignoux, “Your Innovator Brain: The Truth About ADHD” (Balboa Press, 2016)
26 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What exactly is ADHD, and is it time to update our ideas about it? In her new book, Your Innovator Brain: The Truth About ADHD (Balboa Press, 2016), C...
Anne Mac Lellan, “Dorothy Stopford Price: Rebel Doctor” (Irish Academic Press, 2014)
25 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Among the achievements of Irish medicine in the twentieth century was ending the persistent epidemic of tuberculosis throughout the island, and one of...
Stephen Lee Naish, “Create or Die: Essays on the Artistry of Dennis Hopper” (Amsterdam UP, 2016)
24 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen Lee Naish first became aware of Dennis Hopper watching David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, jumpstarting what would become a long examination of Hoppe...
Patricia Buckley Ebrey, “Emperor Huizong” (Harvard UP, 2014)
23 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The Song Chinese emperor Huizong (r. 1100-1126 CE) has long been regarded as a failure due to his dynasty’s defeat in their war against the Jurchens...
William S. Belko, “Philip Pendleton Barbour in Jacksonian America: An Old Republican in King Andrew’s Court” (U. of Alabama Press, 2016)
18 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Though not a household name today, Philip Pendleton Barbour was a leading political and judicial figure in antebellum America. In Philip Pendleton Bar...
Richard L. Davis, “From Warhorses to Ploughshares: The Later Tang Reign of Emperor Mingzong” (Hong Kong UP, 2015)
17 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Ruling as he did during the Five Dynasties period of Chinese history, the emperor Mingzong (r. 926-933) has not received the same degree attention fro...
Robert O’Kell, “Disraeli: The Romance of Politics” (U. of Toronto Press, 2014)
11 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Benjamin Disraeli was unique among British prime ministers in the 19th century in many ways, but perhaps none more so than for his career as a novelis...
James K. Libbey, “Alben Barkley: A Life in Politics” (U. Press of Kentucky, 2016)
13 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Known as the Iron Man of politics, Alben Barkley enjoyed a career that took him from rural Kentucky to the vice-presidency of the United States of Ame...
Dermot Meleady, “John Redmond: The National Leader” (Merrion Press, 2014)
08 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Though in many ways the forgotten man of Irish politics, John Redmond came closer to achieving the long-sought goal of Home Rule for Ireland than had ...
Reza Zarghamee, “Discovering Cyrus: The Persian Conqueror Astride the Ancient World” (Mage Pub, 2013)
05 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
From his modest beginnings in southern Iran, the Persian king Cyrus II went on to conquer three of the dominant kingdoms of the ancient Near East thos...
Jessa Crispin, “The Dead Ladies Project: Exiles, Expats, and Ex-Countries” (U. of Chicago Press, 2015)
01 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Biography is a genre of largely unexamined power: a literary field that preserves stories of lived lives and, through them, perpetuates notions that t...
Norman L. Macht, “The Grand Old Man of Baseball: Connie Mack in His Final Years, 1932-1956” (U. of Nebraska Press, 2015)
28 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
At the start of The Grand Old Man of Baseball: Connie Mack in His Final Years, 1932-1956, the third volume of Norman L. Macht’s biography of basebal...
David Potter, “Theodora: Actress, Empress, Saint” (Oxford UP, 2015)
26 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to the writings of Procopius and other detractors, the Byzantine empress Theodora (c. 495-548 CE) has long been viewed as a depraved and spitef...
Marlene Trestman, “Fair Labor Lawyer: The Remarkable Life of New Deal Attorney and Supreme Court Advocate Bessie Margolin” (Louisiana State UP, 2016)
26 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
As a trailblazing attorney, Bessie Margolin lived a life of exceptional achievement. At a time when the legal profession consisted almost entirely of ...
Thomas Knock, “Rise of a Prairie Statesman: The Life and Times of George McGovern” (Princeton UP, 2016)
19 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
George McGovern is largely remembered today for his dramatic loss to Richard Nixon in the 1972 presidential campaign, yet he enjoyed a long career cha...
Ed Berlin, “King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era” (Oxford UP, 2016)
15 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Few composers dominate a genre of music as completely as did Scott Joplin. From the publication of his iconic Maple Leaf Rag in 1899 onward his ragtim...
Steve Kemper, “A Splendid Savage: The Restless Life of Frederick Russell Burnham” (W. W. Norton, 2016)
13 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In A Splendid Savage: The Restless Life of Frederick Russell Burnham (W. W. Norton, 2016), freelance journalist Steve Kemper details the adventurous, ...
Roger Daniels, “Franklin D. Roosevelt: Road to the New Deal, 1882-1939” (U Illinois Press, 2015)
02 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
For all that has been written about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, many misconceptions about the man and his achievements continue to persist. Roger Danie...
Brooke Hauser, “Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman”
20 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
“Women’s history, if they had any, consisted in their being beautiful enough to become events in male lives,” the feminist academic Carolyn R. H...
Mel Scult, “The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan” (Indiana UP, 2013)
16 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan (Indiana University Press, 2013), Mel Scult, professor emeritus at Brooklyn College, explores th...
Michael Broer, “Napoleon: Soldier of Destiny” (Pegasus, 2015)
13 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Most biographers writing about the life and achievements of Napoleon Bonaparte have focused on his dramatic personality or his military campaigns. In ...
Ingrid Carlberg, “Raoul Wallenberg: The Biography” (MacLehose Press, 2016)
04 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What makes a person? What makes an act heroic? And what determines a person’s fate? These are the questions driving the narrative in Ingrid Carlberg...
Peter L. Laurence, “Becoming Jane Jacobs” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016)
30 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Peter L. Laurence is an associate professor of urban design, history and theory at Clemson University School of Architecture. His book Becoming Jane J...
Harlan Lebo, “Citizen Kane: A Filmmakers Journey” (Thomas Dunne Books, 2016)
19 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Considered by many to be the greatest American film ever made, Citizen Kane was the product of Orson Welles, who made a movie that is still groundbrea...
Kate Bolick, “Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own” (Crown, 2015)
19 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
“There still exists little organized sense of what a woman’s biography or autobiography should look like,” Carolyn G. Heilbrun wrote in her 1988...
Shai Held, “Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence” (Indiana UP, 2013)
16 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence (Indiana University Press, 2013), Shai Held, Co-Founder, Dean and Chair in Jewish Thought at Mech...
Julie Des Jardins, “Walter Camp: Football and the Modern Man” (Oxford University Press, 2015)
06 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In anticipation of Super Bowl 50, Sports Illustrated and WIRED magazines teamed up to speculate about the state of football fifty years from now, at t...
Sarah Maza, “Violette Noziere: A Story of Murder in 1930s Paris” (U. of California Press, 2012)
18 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
On August 21, 1933, the teenaged Violette Noziere attempted to kill both her parents. At first, seemingly so clearcut, the case ultimately came to be...
John Allen Paulos, “A Numerate Life” (Prometheus Books, 2015)
12 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
John Allen Paulos, who has accomplished the unheard-of double of writing best-sellers about mathematics and inserting a word (‘innumeracy’) into t...
Megan Marshall, “Margaret Fuller: A New American Life” (Mariner Books, 2013)
08 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Megan Marshall is the Charles Wesley Emerson College Professor in writing, literature and publishing. Her book Margaret Fuller: A New American Life (M...
James E. Strick, “Wilhelm Reich, Biologist” (Harvard UP, 2015)
06 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
“Life must have a father and mother…Science! I’m going to plant a bomb under its ass!” The author of the line above – who scrawled it in hi...
Minghui Hu, “China’s Transition to Modernity: The New Classical Vision of Dai Zhen” (U of Washington Press, 2015)
15 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Minghui Hu‘s new book takes Dai Zhen as a case study to look at broader transformations in classical scholarship, technical methodologies, politics,...
Kecia Ali, “The Lives of Muhammad” (Harvard UP, 2014)
25 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Muhammad is remembered in a multitude of ways, by both Muslims and non-Muslims. And through each retelling we learn a great deal not only about Muhamm...
Daisy Hay, “Mr. and Mrs. Disraeli: A Strange Romance” (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2015)
25 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
As I imagine most any biographer will tell you, one of the great joys and privileges of biographical research is using archives. This is where one enc...
Donald Dewey, “Lee J. Cobb: Characters of an Actor” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014)
20 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book Lee J. Cobb: Characters of an Actor (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014),Don Dewey discusses Lee J. Cobb’s career, both from his importanc...
Sally G. McMillen, “Lucy Stone: An Unapologetic Life” (Oxford University Press, 2015)
14 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Sally G. McMillen is the Mary Reynolds Babcock professor of history at Davidson College. In her book Lucy Stone: An Unapologetic Life (Oxford Universi...
Meryle Secrest, “Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography” (Knopf, 2014)
02 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
As Meryle Secrest notes in the introduction to her new book, Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography (Knopf, 2014),”The most extraordinary fashion designer o...
Michael Leggiere, “Blucher: Scourge of Napoleon” (U Oklahoma Press, 2014)
01 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
I have really enjoyed Michael Leggiere‘s earlier work, including the excellent Napoleon and Berlin : The Franco-Prussian War in North Germany, 1813 ...
Thomas Kemple, “Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber’s Calling” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)
28 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Kemple‘s new book is an extraordinarily thoughtful invitation to approach Max Weber (1864-1920) as a performer, and to experience Weber’s w...
Nick Wilding, "Galileo's Idol: Gianfrancesco Sagredo and the Politics of Knowledge" (U Chicago Press, 2014)
16 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Nick Wilding's new book is brilliant, thoughtful, and an absolute pleasure to read. Galileo's Idol: Gianfrancesco Sagredo and The Politics of Knowled...
Nick Wilding, “Galileo’s Idol: Gianfrancesco Sagredo and the Politics of Knowledge” (U Chicago Press, 2014)
15 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Nick Wilding‘s new book is brilliant, thoughtful, and an absolute pleasure to read. Galileo’s Idol: Gianfrancesco Sagredo and The Politics of Know...
Justin Martin, “Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America’s First Bohemians” (Da Capo Press, 2014)
10 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Biography is, both etymologically and in its conventional forms, the writing of a life. But what is the role of place within that? And how do the stor...
Alina Garcia-Lapuerta, “La Belle Creole” (Chicago Review Press, 2014)
18 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
One of the fundamental functions of biography is the preservation of stories. But it also acts to resurrect the stories that may have fallen from view...
Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, “Patrice Lumumba” (Ohio University Press, 2014)
02 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Patrice Lumumba was a leader of the independence struggle, as well as the country’s first democratically elected prime minister, in what is today th...
James Mace Ward, “Priest, Politician, Collaborator: Jozef Tiso and the Making of Fascist Slovakia” (Cornell UP, 2013)
25 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In his biography of Jozef Tiso, Catholic priest and president of independent Slovakia (1939-1944), James Ward provides a deeper understanding of a man...
S. Duncan Reid, “Cal Tjader: The Life and Recordings of the Man Who Revolutionized Latin Jazz” (McFarland, 2013)
18 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
S. Duncan Reid has written a meticulously researched and detailed account of the performances and recording career of Bay Area-raised and small group ...
Janet Sims-Wood, “Dorothy Porter Wesley at Howard University” (The History Press, 2014)
15 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
There was once a notion that black people had no meaningful history. It’s a notion Dorothy Porter Wesley spent her entire career debunking. Through ...
Ernest Harsch, “Thomas Sankara: An African Revolutionary” (Ohio UP, 2014)
10 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Sankara, often called the African Che Guevara, was president of Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in Africa, until his assassination d...
Rebecca Rogers, “A Frenchwoman’s Imperial Story” (Stanford UP, 2013)
02 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 1830s, the French school teacher Eugénie Luce migrated to Algeria. A decade later, she was a major force in the debates around educat...
Karen Abbott, “Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War” (Harper, 2014)
08 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
If group biography is one of the exciting new trends in life-writing (and some say it is), Karen Abbott– the historian, not to be confused with the ...
Melanie C. Hawthorne, "Finding the Woman Who Didn't Exist: The Curious Life of Gisele d'Estoc" (U Nebraska Press, 2014)
11 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
"Why write the biography of a nobody?" That is the question with which Melanie C. Hawthorne begins Finding the Woman Who Didn't Exist: The Curious ...
Adam Phillips, “Becoming Freud: The Making of a Psychoanalyst” (Yale UP, 2014)
28 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
For those who are savvy about all things psychoanalytic, be they analysts, analysands, or fellow travelers, the existence, presence, work, writing, an...
James Carter, “Heart of Buddha, Heart of China: The Life of Tanxu, a Twentieth-Century Monk” (Oxford UP, 2011)
11 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Jay Carter‘s new book follows the life of one man as a way of opening a window into the lived history of twentieth-century China. Heart of Buddha, H...
Tina Santi Flaherty, “What Jackie Taught Us” (Perigree Paperback, 2014)
20 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Originally, particularly in American writings, one of the explicit purpose of biography was to teach readers how to live. As Scott E. Caspar writes i...
Donna-Lee Frieze, “Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin” (Yale UP, 2013)
01 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
It’s hard to overestimate the role of Raphael Lemkin in calling the world’s attention to the crime of genocide. But for decades his name languis...
Lucy Hughes-Hallett, “Gabriele d’Annunzio: Poet, Seducer, and Preacher of War” (Knopf, 2013)
27 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Winner of the 2013 Samuel Johnson Prize, Lucy Hughes-Hallett‘s biography of Gabriele d’Annunzio is a book with a big mission: to write inventively...
Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, “HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton” (Crown Publishers, 2014).
07 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes are the co-authors of authors of HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton (Crown Publishers 2014). Allen i...
Will Swift, “Pat and Dick: The Nixons, an Intimate Portrait of a Marriage” (Threshold Editions, 2014)
05 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In America, biographies of Presidents and First Ladies are a staple of the genre, but the relationship that exists between the two receives surprising...
Timothy Shenk, “Maurice Dobb: Political Economist” (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013)
22 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The British Marxist economist Maurice Dobb is now largely forgotten. That’s too bad for a number of reasons. He was a brilliant thinker who wrote so...
Robert Neer, “Napalm: An American Biography” (Harvard UP, 2013)
13 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Just as there is no one way to write a biography, nor should there be, so there is no rule dictating that biography must be about the life of a person...
Michael O’Brien, ed., “The Letters of C. Vann Woodward” (Yale UP, 2013)
05 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Few historians have influenced their field the way that C. Vann Woodward (1908-99) changed the writing of southern history. First at Johns Hopkins and...
Adam Henig, “Alex Haley’s Roots: An Author’s Odyssey” (2014)
05 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Haley’s 1976 book Roots: The Saga of an American Family still stands as a memorable epic journey into the history of African Americans during t...
Patricia Ebrey, “Emperor Huizong” (Harvard University Press, 2014)
03 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Patricia Ebrey‘s beautifully written and exhaustively researched new book introduces readers to an emperor of China as artist, collector, father, ru...
Lauren Coodley, “Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual” (University of Nebraska Press, 2013)
01 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Everybody knows the author of The Jungle was Upton Sinclair (or, if they’re a little confused, they might say Sinclair Lewis). As Lauren Coodley sho...
Clare Mulley, “The Spy Who Loved: The Secrets and Lives of Christine Granville” (St. Martin’s, 2013)
31 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
It’s almost a cliché by now to say that we need stories of strong women, but that doesn’t lessen the fact that we do. And biography is a field ...