Best political autobiographies
•
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 boo
•
Six Political Memoirs Worth Reading
Book Recommendations
Hackish campaign memoirs shouldn’t indict the entire genre—there are truly excellent books written about power from the inside.
By Franklin Foer
In the months leading up to a presidential election, bookstores fill with campaign memoirs. These titles are, for the most part, ghostwritten. They are devoid of psychological insights and bereft of telling moments, instead typically giving their readers the most stilted of self-portraits, produced in hackish haste. They are, really, a pretext for an aspirant’s book tour and perhaps an appearance on The View—in essence, a campaign advertisement squeezed between two covers.
But these self-serving vehicles shouldn’t indict the larger genre of political autobiography. Truly excellent books have been written about statecraft and power from the inside. And few professions brim with more humanity, in all of its flawed majesty: Politicians must confront both the irre
•
The SLMan Edit
Promise Me, Dad by Joe Biden
Promise Me, Dad is a deeply moving memoir about the year that would change both a family and a country for ever. In November 2014, 13 members of the Biden family gathered on Nantucket for Thanksgiving, a tradition they had been celebrating for the past 40 years. But this year felt different. Joe and Jill Biden's eldest son, Beau, had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour and his survival was uncertain. Promise Me, Dad chronicles the year that followed, which would be the most momentous and challenging in Biden's life and career. As Vice President, Biden travelled more than 100,000 miles that year, dealing with crises in Ukraine, Central America and Iraq. For 12 months, while Beau fought for and then lost his life, Biden balanced the twin imperatives of living up to his responsibilities to his country and his responsibilities to his family. And never far away was the insistent and urgent question of whether he should seek t