Monday, September 24, 2012

Recommending Biographies

At Ricochet, there's an interesting post with comments on the best biographies. Some of my quick nominees would be:

  1. John Adams by David McCullough
  2. Hitler by John Toland
  3. Cicero by Anthony Everitt
  4. Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson
  5. The first volume of the LBJ biography by Robert Caro
  6. Mussolini by Denis Mack Smith
  7. Stalin by Robert Conquest
  8. Winston Churchill: A Brief Life by Piers Brendon

I shudder to think of how many great ones I've missed.

Your nominees?

3 comments:

Kurt Harden said...

Richard Brookhiser's James Madison is excellent. Also Terry Teachout's biography of Mencken, The Skeptic, and Maynard Solomon's Mozart.

Michael Wade said...

Kurt,

Thanks! I haven't read any of those and will check them out.

Michael

Dan in Philly said...

I would recommend what may the the first autobiography: "Confessions" by St. Augustine.