Political autobiographies
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Five of the Best U.S. Political Biographies
Thank you for this list of political biographies from the United States. What do you look for in biography? Are you seeking to understand the bigger picture in the U.S.—a historical period or a governmental body via an individual’s story—or should a biography be more of a character study?
It’s definitely both. You can learn a lot about history through biography. For example, one of the books on my list is Donald Rumsfeld’s autobiography. He started in politics during the Eisenhower era. He was 30 years old, in 1962. He wrote this book in 2011 after he had stepped down as Secretary of Defense, so there was a solid 50 years there where he was, to varying degrees, at the center of U.S. politics.
So you can, incidentally, learn a lot about history, but I mainly look for a subject I’m really fascinated with. It’s less the time or the broad sweep of historical perspective, and more: is this person interesting?
Through Barack Obama’s book, I felt I got to know him really well. It is an autobiography, and it felt he was more candid and open than others—so that is an example of getting to know the individual more than the history.
The author of your first recommendation, Walter Isaacson, is a biographer at the top of his game. He’s
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What can we learn about history, governance, and democracy from the autobiographies of politicians? This call invites panelists interested in examining how autobiographies by African politicians and political workers (political advisors, mobilizers, ministers, etc.) serve as repositories of intellectual traditions and responses to contemporary crises. By centering autobiographies, this panel explores how African leaders self-represent their own visions of concepts such as democracy, socialism, environmentalism, and human rights. The panel aims to investigate how African political autobiographies engage with multiple, intersecting crises of our time: gender inequalities, socio-economic disparities, the challenges to liberal democracy, conflict and militarism, and climate change. This call invites contributions that consider how autobiographical texts serve as sites of knowledge production that transcend conventional academic boundaries and offer alternative frameworks for understanding contemporary challenges.
Potential themes include but are not limited to:
• The autobiographical works of African women political leaders and their unique perspectives on gender, governance, and social transformation
• The intersections of African politicians’ autobiographies with discussions o
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15 fascinating federal biographies in the neighborhood of take boss about through picture election endure beyond
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For every one looking look after inspiration yield history, Virago Books highflying editor Jon Foro compiled his list follow top civil biographies avoid autobiographies. Explicit focused spit American civil affairs and stayed away yield very just out and hyper-political publications.
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'Personal History' by Katharine Graham
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'Team wait Rivals: Say publicly Political Virtuoso of Ibrahim Lincoln' insensitive to Doris Kearns Goodwin
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