biography 
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SOURCE: The Bulwark
2/21/2022
Spielberg was the Director Lincoln Deserved
The director, with writer Tony Kushner and star Daniel Day-Lewis, nailed the idea of Lincoln as an imperfect leader nevertheless "fitted to the times we were born into," in a film that holds up after ten years.
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2/20/2022
Why the Short and Rebellious Life of Stephen Crane Still Matters
by Linda H. Davis
Though he quickly became a model of literary celebrity of the sort we would recognize today, Stephen Crane's more crucial legacy is of the pursuit of truth without regard to consequence.
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SOURCE: National Interest
1/2/2022
How Willmoore Kendall Invented Trumpism
by Jacob Heilbrunn
Christopher Owens's biography places Willmoore Kendall in the first rank of postwar conservative intellectuals and identifies him with the fusion of populism and traditionalism associated with the Trumpist right and the burgeoning "national conservative" movements.
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SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
11/3/2021
Lee's Fault: On Allen Guelzo's Biography
by John Reeves
A reviewer concludes that Allen Guelzo's new biography succeeds in evaluating Robert E. Lee's military career but misses in its assessment of his relationship to slavery and his legacy.
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SOURCE: New York Times
9/25/2021
How do I Tell the Story of Robert E. Lee?
by Allen C. Guelzo
Lee is a study in contradictions, argues his most recent biographer. Can the public today engage with them?
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SOURCE: Atlanta
8/10/2021
Latest Installment of Graphic Format Memoir of John Lewis Deals with Ongoing Legacy
A conversation with Andrew Aydin, John Lewis's former aide and collaborator on "Run," the hit graphic format memoir, discusses the legacy of the activist and congressman.
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SOURCE: New York Review of Books
5/11/2021
Ending the Kennedy Romance (Frederick Logevall's JFK Bio Reviewed)
by Michael Kazin
Frederick Logevall's biography, written by a scholar who didn't experience the Camelot myth firsthand, should point toward a clearer-headed consideration of JFK's legacy, argues Michael Kazin.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
If the Author Is a Bad Person, Does That Change Anything?
by Judith Shulevitz
"Roth had baggage in all domains of life, and Bailey, an eager bellhop, carries the whole load for him—the unhappy marriages and contentious divorces and relationships and affairs and everything else as well."
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4/25/2021
"The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III" by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser
by James Thornton Harris
Peter Baker and Susan Glasser's biography of the influential Republican political dealmaker at the heart of the Reagan-Bush era offers a compelling account of James A. Baker's career, but shows him to have been more motivated by power than by a vision of its uses.
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SOURCE: New York Times
3/30/2021
Philip Roth Was His Own Favorite Subject. What’s Left for a Biographer?
Blake Bailey's new biography of the novelist Philip Roth represented a challenge not least because of Roth's notorious resistance to getting the biographical treatment, but also because of the weakness of the literary biographical tradition in American letters.
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4/4/2021
Pamela, Randolph and Winston: The Wartime Discord of the Churchills
by Josh Ireland
The recent Royal Family drama had nothing on the relationship of Winston Churchill and his son Randolph, which was thrown into tumult by the younger Churchill's marital problems at the onset of World War II.
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SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
2/15/2021
‘George Washington’ Review: Our Founding Politician
David Stewart's new book on George Washington highlights his political skills and careful work at cultivating allies. Far from being an apolitical leader, Washington was a skilled operator whose greatest achievement was avoiding the stigma of politics.
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2/21/2021
Neal Gabler's "Catching the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Liberal Hour"
by James Thornton Harris
Neal Gabler's first volume of a biography of Ted Kennedy praises the long-serving senator as the driving force of a hugely consequential period of liberal legislative success. Those looking for gossip or consideration of his personal failures may be disappointed.
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SOURCE: Civil War Memory
1/3/2021
Do We Really Need Another Biography of Robert E. Lee?
by Kevin M. Levin
Recent discussion of the forthcoming biography of Robert E. Lee by Allen Guelzo shouldn't foreclose the possibility that the book will offer insight because many historians object to Guelzo's participation in Donald Trump's conference on teaching history.
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SOURCE: New York Times
10/27/2020
Shifting the Focus From Sylvia Plath’s Tragic Death to Her Brilliant Life
Heather Clark's new biography of the poet returns focus to her life and work rather than her afterlife.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
10/15/2020
Beyond the Myth of Malcolm X (review essay)
A new biography of Malcolm X sets his political thought in the context of the midcentury Black communities where he lived and how his Black contemporaries saw him.
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SOURCE: New York Times
9/8/2020
‘JFK,’ by Fredrik Logevall: An Excerpt
Read an excerpt from Fredrik Logevall's new biography of John F. Kennedy touching on the collegiate Kennedy's observations of Europe as World War II began.
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SOURCE: New York Times
9/8/2020
Groomed to Be President: David Kennedy Reviews Fredrik Logevall's JFK Bio
Fredrik Logevall's new book, the first of two volumes on the life of JFK, pushes back against perceptions of the young Kennedy as an accidental politician or intellectual lightweight, and describes the way world events shaped his worldview.
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SOURCE: LA Times
8/18/2020
Review: The New John Lewis Biography is a Stirring Tribute that Still Sells Him Short
Readers who know little about Lewis will find an often moving story, but it will prove unsatisfying to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the movement.
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5/10/2020
Spiritualism and Suspension Bridges: John Roebling and a Biographer's Sympathy for the Weird 19th Century
by Richard Haw
A biographer of Brooklyn Bridge designer John Roebling expected to write about a genius. He also ended up writing about a complete weirdo, and how one man could be both.
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