Biography & Autobiography - Political

Deadly epidemics of yellow fever and Asiatic cholera plagued the South throughout the nineteenth century, yet doctors had few effective weapons against the diseases. Luke Pryor Blackburn, a Kentucky-born physician, worked with more success than most to save the lives of those who were...

This lively memoir recounts the story of a determined woman who led a remarkable life in the highest circles of power in both state and national politics. Catherine Conner spent her formative years on a farm named "Solitude," located outside of Bardstown. Her father,...

Harold Stassen (1907--2001) garnered accolades as the thirty-one-year-old "boy wonder" governor of Minnesota and quickly assumed a national role as aide to Admiral William Halsey Jr. during World War II. When Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected in 1952, Stassen was named director of the...

The United States has looked inward throughout most of its history, preferring to avoid "foreign entanglements," as George Washington famously advised. After World War II, however, Americans became more inclined to break with the past and take a prominent place on the world stage....

Union general, federal judge, presidential contender, and cabinet officer-Walter Q. Gresham of Indiana stands as an enigmatic character in the politics of the Gilded Age, one who never seemed comfortable in the offices he sought. This first scholarly biography not only follows the turns...

Henry Kissinger conducted American foreign policy with a distinctive assurance and panache that gave dramatic force to his tenure as secretary of state. His was the shaping hand in decisions that led to detente with the Soviet Union, to opening relations with the People's...

"Do unto others as ye would have them do unto you" are the words upon which Samuel M. Jones, self-made millionaire and mayor of Toledo, Ohio (1897-1904) organized his life, business, and political career.Unlike most progressive reformers, Jones was in a position to initiate...

He was a son of Africa who became father to a nation and, for billions of people around the world, a beacon of hope, courage, and perseverance in the face of opposition. Now, acclaimed poet Maya Angelou honors the life and remarkable soul of...

This extraordinary collection gathers the never-before-seen correspondence of a true American original--the acclaimed historian and lion of the liberal establishment, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. An advisor to presidents, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and tireless champion of progressive government, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., was also an inveterate...

James A. Michener, the acclaimed author of sweeping historical blockbusters, chronicles his personal involvement in one of the most dramatic elections of the twentieth century: the presidential race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. A relative newcomer to politics, Michener served as the...

An intimate profile of the legendary Washington Post editor whose life and career encompassed Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, and the Kennedys--as portrayed by Tom Hanks in the Steven Spielberg film The Post "A fairly complete and rare portrait of this last of the lion-king...

He was the Great Compromiser, a canny and colorful legislator whose life mirrors the story of America from its founding until the eve of the Civil War. Speaker of the House, senator, secretary of state, five-time presidential candidate, and idol to the young Abraham...

The age of Napoleon transformed Europe, laying the foundations for the modern world. Now Alistair Horne, one of the great chroniclers of French history gives us a fresh account of that remarkable time. Born into poverty on the remote island of Corsica, he rose...

First detailed study of India's fastest growing political party.Author: Craig BaxterISBN-10: 0812275837ISBN-13: 9780812275834Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press AnniversaryLanguage: EnglishPublished: 10/29/1969Pages: 368Format: HardcoverWeight: 1.51lbsSize: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.81d

Born in 1918 into the fabric of Arab-Jewish frontier life at the foot of Mt. Tabor, Yigal Allon rose to become one of the founding figures of the state of Israel and an architect of its politics. In 1945 Allon became commander of the...

Scientist, abolitionist, revolutionary: that is the Benjamin Franklin we know and celebrate. To this description, the talented young historian David Waldstreicher shows we must add runaway, slave master, and empire builder. But Runaway America does much more than revise our image of a beloved...

James Wilson, signer of the federal constitution and one of the most influential leaders in the formative period of the republic, has been the only great figure of his age to be without a biography. As a consequence his name is virtually unknown to...

Born in Trinidad, Eric Williams (1911-81) founded the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago's first modern political party in 1956, led the country to independence from the British culminating in 1962, and became the nation's first prime minister. Before entering politics, he was a professor...

Henry A. Wallace (1888-1965) remains one of the most puzzling figures of twentieth-century American politics. Serving as secretary of agriculture during the Great Depression, as vice president from 1941 to 1945, and advocating accommodation with the Soviet Union as the Progressive Party's candidate for...

Wise (1806-76) was extremely active on the Virginia and national political scene from the early 1830s to the mid-1860s, drawing popular support because of his projection of hopefulness and energy. Regarded as eccentric, Wise is given, in this study, an interpretation that finds consistency...

Lloyd Kramer offers a new interpretation of the cultural and political significance of the career of the Marquis de Lafayette, which spanned the American Revolution, the French Revolutions of 1789 and 1830, and the Polish Uprising of 1830-31. Moving beyond traditional biography, Kramer traces...

In his masterpiece, Jefferson Davis, American, William J. Cooper, Jr., crafted a sweeping, definitive biography and established himself as the foremost scholar on the intriguing Confederate president. Cooper narrows his focus considerably in Jefferson Davis and the Civil War Era, training his expert eye...

Although he was one of the most important African American political leaders during the last decade of the nineteenth century, George Henry White has been one of the least remembered. A North Carolina representative from 1897 to 1901, White was the last man of...

Scholars of the civil rights movement and twentieth-century African American history traditionally refer to Asa Philip Randolph as the organizer of the first all-black labor union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Paula Pfeffer's aim in this detailed and insightful biography, however, is "to...

John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) was one of the prominent figure of American politics in the first half of the nineteenth century. The son of a slaveholding South Carolina family, he served in the federal government in various capacities--as senator from his home state, as...

Cutting across the Bourbon Era, the Populist Revolt, and the Progressive Movement, Hoke Smith's career gave expression to the Southern politics of his generation. In Hoke Smith and the Politics of the New South, Dewey Grantham examines in detail the central role of this...

In 1926 a young Peruvian woman picked up a gun, wrested her infant daughter from her husband, and liberated herself from the constraints of a patriarchal society. Magda Portal, a poet and journalist, would become one of Latin America's most successful and controversial politicians....

Best known to Americans as the "singing cowboy," beloved entertainer Gene Autry (1907-1998) appeared in countless films, radio broadcasts, television shows, and other venues. While Autry's name and a few of his hit songs are still widely known today, his commitment to political causes...

One of Oklahoma's most famous native sons, Fred Harris faced life's challenges with the same resolve as a favorite uncle: "Does people do it? If people does it, I can do it." In this engaging memoir, he describes how he met those challenges head-on.A...

At age six, Carl Albert knew he wanted to serve in the United States Congress. In 1947 he realized his dream when he was elected to serve in the House of Representatives alongside John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon. In Little Giant, Albert...

Reviled as a fascist by his great rival Ben-Gurion, venerated by Israel's underclass, the first Israeli to win the Nobel Peace Prize, a proud Jew but not a conventionally religious one, Menachem Begin was both complex and controversial. Born in Poland in 1913, Begin...

The huge archive of the personal papers (most of them unexamined by historians) of Sir Simonds D'Ewes afford us an intimate view of both the public and private lives of a seventeenth-century gentleman-a Puritan, a Parliamentarian, a lawyer, genealogist, and antiquarian who deepens our...

This book is the unforgettable story of a Comanche woman who has become one of the most influential, inspired, and determined Native Americans in politics. LaDonna Harris was born on a Comanche allotment in southern Oklahoma in the 1930s. From her earliest years, she...

On May 26, 1993, the Algerian novelist and poet Tahar Djaout was gunned down in an attack attributed to Islamist extremists. An outspoken critic of the extremism roiling his nation, Djaout, in his death, became a powerful symbol for the "murder of Algerian culture,"...

Though George Norris was born and grew up in Ohio, he headed west after earning his law degree and set up practice in Nebraska, eventually settling in McCook. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1902 and the Senate in 1912, Norris was a...

This book is the most comprehensive reference grammar of Choctaw, an American Indian language spoken by approximately eleven thousand people located primarily in Mississippi and Oklahoma. Based on nineteen years of field work with speakers of the Mississippi and Oklahoma dialects and more than...

It had come to this: breastfeeding her screaming three-month-old while sitting on the cigarette-scarred floor of a union hall, lying to her husband so she could attend yet another activist meeting, and otherwise actively self-destructing. Then Sonya Huber turned to her long-dead grandfather, the...

Now in paperback, Madame Chiang Kai-shek is the first biography of one of history's most intriguing and controversial political figures. Beautiful, brilliant, and captivating, Madame Chiang Kai-shek seized unprecedented power during China's long and violent civil war. She passionately argued against Chinese Communism in...

Eva Peron was a star and a legend during her lifetime, one of the most alluring women of the twentieth century. Through the hit Broadway musical Evita by Andrew Lloyd Webber, her story became famous, and with the release of the film starring Madonna...

Robert A.D. Ford is the only Western diplomat to have known and dealt with all the Soviet leaders from the end of the Second World War to the present. In this memoir he offers a unique perspective on post-war Soviet politics and Russian life.Author:...

"A fascinating book. Monsieur d'Eon Is a Woman is instructive and a delight to read all at the same time."--Quentin CrispBorn in 1728, French aristocrat Charles d'Eon de Beaumont had served his country as a diplomat, soldier, and spy for fifteen years when rumors...

Creator and first president of the New York Central Railroad, Erastus Corning was one of the outstanding American businessmen of the midnineteenth century. Merchant and manufacturer, railroad promoter, land speculator, financier, and politician, he built a fortune from nothing to eight million dollars. In...

Fiorello LaGuardia is known best as the tempestuous mayor of New York City in the days when Franklin Delano Roosevelt sat in the White House. There had been, however, an earlier time, which matched his mayoralty years in sheer drama and perhaps surpassed them...

"Fanon was consummately incapable of telling the story of himself. He lived in the immediacy of the moment, with an intensity that embodied everything he evoked. Fanon's discourse pertained to a present tense that was unburdened by its narrative past. The little we knew...

What impels a Mohandas Gandhi or a Martin Luther King, Jr.?How does religious experience animate a lifetime of dedicationand drive for social justice?In this instructive and inspiring account, Christian ethicist CurtissDeYoung profiles three of the most dynamic and influentialreligious activists of the twentieth century:...

Vasilii Fedorovich Malinovskii (1765-1814) is a name which has hitherto lacked true resonance in the history of Russian culture. Tt is of course a name known to all students of Alexander Pushkin's biography, for Malinovskii was the first Director of the new Tsarskoe Selo...

In the spirit of John F. Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning Profiles in Courage, 13 essays honoring modern-day political heroes, penned by a collection of stellar authors Nearly half a century after then-Senator John F. Kennedy was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Profiles in Courage, his...

Mike Starr had a remarkable career in Canadian politics. In June 1957, he was appointed Minister of Labour in John Diefenbaker's cabinet and created a sensation, especially among Canadian ethnocultural groups. He made political history as the first Ukrainian Canadian appointed to federal cabinet....

The national bestseller that has inspired women everywhere to focus on what matters most and follow their dreams wherever they may lead. "Never losing faith, we worked to redeem the promise of America, that all men and women are created equal. For our daughters...

"I don't own a single share of stock." --Michael Moore Members of the liberal left exude an air of moral certitude. They pride themselves on being selflessly committed to the highest ideals and seem particularly confident of the purity of their motives and the...