Best Biography Books: Essential Reading in Life Writing
The best biography books — from The Power Broker and Alexander Hamilton to Educated and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Essential biography and memoir reading.
By Oliver Kane
Biography at its best does two things simultaneously: it renders a particular human life with enough specificity to make it feel real, and it illuminates something larger — a political system, a historical moment, a question about human nature. The books below represent the essential range of the form, from the towering political biography (The Power Broker) to the personal memoir of self-transformation (Educated) to the political autobiography (Malcolm X).
The Great Political Biographies
The Power Broker — Robert Caro (1974)
The greatest American biography — Robert Moses’s fifty-year domination of New York’s physical landscape, achieved without electoral office through legal creativity, political manipulation, and an absolute conviction that he knew what cities needed better than the people who lived in them. Caro’s investigation of how Moses obtained and used power is the most searching account of American political power in non-fiction. At 1,162 pages, the most demanding book on this list — and the most rewarding. Won the Pulitzer Prize.
Team of Rivals — Doris Kearns Goodwin (2005)
Lincoln’s decision to appoint his three main rivals for the Republican presidential nomination to his cabinet — and what that decision reveals about his political genius. Goodwin follows William Seward, Salmon Chase, and Edward Bates as well as Lincoln, making the book as much a group biography of the Civil War’s political leadership as a life of Lincoln. The most accessible of the major Lincoln biographies.
Alexander Hamilton — Ron Chernow (2004)
The most compelling life of the most interesting Founding Father — Hamilton’s rise from illegitimate poverty in the Caribbean to the centre of American power, his role in creating the financial institutions that made the United States viable, his feud with Jefferson, and his death in a duel with Aaron Burr. Chernow writes narrative biography at the highest level; the book inspired the Broadway musical. The best starting point for readers new to serious biography.
Grant — Ron Chernow (2017)
Chernow’s rehabilitation of Ulysses S. Grant — arguing that the conventional picture of Grant as a military genius and political failure is wrong, and that his presidency, specifically his aggressive enforcement of civil rights legislation in the post-Civil War South, was a moral achievement that has been systematically undervalued by historians sympathetic to the Lost Cause. The most important revision of Grant’s historical reputation.
Washington: A Life — Ron Chernow (2010)
Chernow’s complete life of Washington — the most humanly rounded portrait of a man who has tended to be rendered as a marble statue rather than a person. Chernow’s Washington is cautious, proud, aware of his own deficiencies, and deeply concerned with his historical reputation.
Autobiography and Memoir
The Autobiography of Malcolm X — Malcolm X with Alex Haley (1965)
One of the most important American books of the twentieth century — Malcolm X’s account of his transformation from petty criminal to political leader, his conversion to Islam, his break with the Nation of Islam after his pilgrimage to Mecca, and his assassination. The prose is urgent and direct; the argument about racism and American self-deception is as relevant now as it was in 1965.
Long Walk to Freedom — Nelson Mandela (1994)
Mandela’s account of his life from his childhood in the Transkei through his 27 years in prison on Robben Island to his release and the negotiations that ended apartheid and made him South Africa’s first democratically elected president. The most important political autobiography of the twentieth century and the most moving account of personal perseverance.
Educated — Tara Westover (2018)
Westover’s memoir of educating herself out of an isolated, survivalist family in rural Idaho — a story of self-transformation that is also an account of what education actually is and what it costs. The most compelling American memoir of the 2010s.
The Glass Castle — Jeannette Walls (2005)
Walls’s memoir of growing up with brilliant, chaotic, negligent parents — an alcoholic father who was always about to make good and a mother who prioritised her painting over her children’s basic needs. The most readable memoir on this list and the one that most clearly illuminates the seductive power of a parent’s mythology.
The Diary of a Young Girl — Anne Frank (1947)
Anne Frank’s diary from her two years in hiding in Amsterdam, from 1942 to 1944, before the family was arrested and Anne died in Bergen-Belsen. The most widely read personal document of the Holocaust and one of the most significant books of the twentieth century — its power comes from the specific, ordinary humanity of the young girl writing it.
Reading Order
Essential: The Power Broker → The Autobiography of Malcolm X → Educated.
American history: Alexander Hamilton → Team of Rivals → Grant.
Complete: The Autobiography of Malcolm X → The Diary of a Young Girl → The Glass Castle → Alexander Hamilton → Team of Rivals → Long Walk to Freedom → The Power Broker → Educated.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best biography to start with?
The Power Broker (1974) by Robert Caro is the greatest American biography ever written — 1,162 pages on Robert Moses, the New York planner who shaped twentieth-century American cities without ever being elected to public office. It is simultaneously a biography, a history of New York, and the most searching investigation of political power in American non-fiction. Alexander Hamilton (2004) by Ron Chernow is the most readable starting point for readers new to serious biography — a comprehensive and compelling life of the most interesting of the Founding Fathers, which inspired the Broadway musical.
What is The Power Broker about?
The Power Broker (1974) by Robert Caro is the life of Robert Moses — the urban planner who built most of modern New York, from its highways and bridges to its parks and housing projects, between the 1920s and the 1960s. Moses was never elected to any office but wielded more power than any elected official in New York's history, using a combination of legal creativity, political maneuvering, and sheer determination to reshape the physical landscape of the city. Caro's biography is as much about power — how it is obtained, used, and abused — as it is about Moses specifically. Won the Pulitzer Prize.
What is Educated about?
Educated (2018) by Tara Westover is a memoir of growing up in a survivalist family in rural Idaho — parents who did not register their children's births, who kept them out of school, who refused medical care, who believed in an imminent apocalyptic collapse of civilization. Westover taught herself enough to pass the ACT, entered Brigham Young University, and eventually earned a PhD from Cambridge, all while managing the psychological aftermath of the family violence and isolation she had survived. One of the most compelling self-education stories in American memoir.
What is The Autobiography of Malcolm X about?
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), as told to Alex Haley, traces Malcolm X's transformation from Malcolm Little, a petty criminal from Lansing, Michigan, through his imprisonment and conversion to the Nation of Islam under Elijah Muhammad, his rise to become the Nation's most prominent spokesperson, his pilgrimage to Mecca and conversion to Sunni Islam, and his assassination in 1965 at the age of 39. The autobiography is simultaneously a conversion narrative, a political argument, and one of the most vivid accounts of Black American life in the mid-twentieth century. One of the most important American books of the twentieth century.
