biography

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  1/12/2023
  

  Why George Kennan Thought He Failed His Biggest Challenge

  by Patrick Iber

  After urging the United States to firmly oppose the expansion of Soviet influence as a way of bringing the USSR's internal weaknesses to the forefront, Kennan grew disillusioned at the militarized tack later versions of "containment" took. A new book revisits and challenges canonical studies of the diplomatic thinker. 

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  12/9/2022
  

  Michael Kazin on J. Edgar Hoover, and Beverly Gage's Acclaimed Biography

  by Michael Kazin

  The signal contribution of Gage's book is not to examine Hoover's ideology or the details of his personal life, but to show how the FBI director built power and broad support, among even liberal Americans, for intrusive surveillance and repression of activists. 

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• 8/28/2022
  

  How I Helped a Private Man Share His Story of Escaping the Nazis

  by David Tabatsky

  For me, the son of a cantor and WWII veteran, who grew up seeing numbers tattooed on numerous arms, sharing Salomon Kool's story has reminded me of a collective mission to always remember.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  8/8/2022
  

  Two-Time Pulitzer Prize Winner David McCulloch Dies at 89

  "Mr. McCullough, long regarded as a master storyteller of American daring, endeavor and perseverance, died Aug. 7 at his home in Hingham, Mass. He was 89."

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• 7/24/2022
  

  Learning About Stalin from His Books: An Interview with Geoffrey Roberts

  by Aaron J. Leonard

  Researchers who access Stalin's books will find the dictator's library a source of insight into his political thinking and engagement with ideas (and his pithy marginalia), but not a Rosetta Stone for understanding his capacity for atrocity. 

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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.

• 
• 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.

• 
• 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? 

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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."

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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.

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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.