51 thoughts on “***The Best Biographies of All Time***”

1. HBM said:

   October 27, 2016 at 10:44 pm

   Steve – Another great site! Thank you.

   Reply

   • Steve said:

     October 28, 2016 at 4:44 am

     Thanks; I have to give credit to my kids who were looking for a way to learn how to start/manage a website. I (try to) come up with the content and they put it into motion. Now, if only I could get them to each read a biography per week…..!

     Reply

2. Ryan Sem said:

   July 10, 2018 at 12:47 pm

   Excited to hear your thoughts on each of the Lafayette books – I’ve been wanting to read a solid book about him for quite some time. I think you’ll find that the Carnegie book by Nasaw is exceptional.

   Reply

3. Jeremy Anderberg said:

   July 11, 2018 at 9:17 pm

   Isaacson’s bio of Leonardo da Vinci isn’t to be missed.

   Dickens by Peter Ackroyd

   Henry David Thoreau by Laura Walls

   Ernest Hemingway by Dearborn

   I loved the presidents site, and was actually thinking of starting my own book review site journey though biographies. You’ve beat me to it good sir! Good on ya.

   Reply

4. Tracy said:

   January 31, 2019 at 8:21 pm

   I have read or in possession twenty-four non-president biographies listed above. Happy reading everyone!

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5. Tony said:

   February 3, 2019 at 8:51 am

   So enjoy your site…thanks for sharing it! I found it last year after deciding to read a biography of each U.S. president along with one of a related person (or event) from the same period.

   How about A Prophet with Honor – The Billy Graham Story, by William Martin? Lots of presidential connections there.

   Reply

   • Steve said:

     February 3, 2019 at 9:17 am

     Great suggestion – it’s strangely under-reviewed for its age but looks like it has enormous potential.

     Reply

6. benjaminharrison27 said:

   July 15, 2019 at 3:31 am

   That’s a lot to be getting on with! If I could make a couple of suggestions I’d add A Certain Idea Of France, Julian Jackson’s recent biography of Charles de Gaulle. Also Jenny Hocking’s two volume biography of Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam is one of the best biographies I’ve ever read, I think. Anyway, thanks a lot for all you do!

   Reply

   • Steve said:

     July 15, 2019 at 5:31 am

     Thanks for the suggestions and, particularly, for the geographic diversity they provide! de Gaulle is an extremely familiar name I can’t wait to get to (I’ll definitely check out Jackson’s bio) and Whitlam is a very unfamiliar name I’ll be looking into – – I’m always looking to add biographies that readers categorize as among “the best” they’ve ever read!

     Reply

     • benjaminharrison27 said:

       July 15, 2019 at 8:47 am

       No worries! I only wish I could recommend more Australian biographies, but we don’t really have the culture of writing biographies about our prime ministers as the United States has for its presidents (you can imagine how frustrating that is).

7. lee said:

   October 19, 2019 at 3:17 pm

   Hi Steve, John Bew’s biography of Clement Attlee is very good.

   Reply

   • Steve said:

     October 21, 2019 at 5:49 am

     Thanks – that’s one I’m not familiar with but it looks excellent!

     Reply

8. Wes said:

   December 15, 2019 at 7:35 pm

   Does anyone have a good bio for Queen Elizabeth II? I’m not really interested in the salacious / gossipy type. Just a nice write up, like Julia Baird did with Victoria.

   Reply

   • HBM said:

     December 15, 2019 at 7:53 pm

     How about this one: https://www.harpercollins.co.uk/9780007476626/the-queen-elizabeth-ii-and-the-monarchy

     Reply

   • Brian Horgan said:

     February 10, 2022 at 10:54 am

     Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch by Sally Bedell Smith was very good.

     Reply

9. Casey said:

   January 1, 2020 at 7:35 pm

   What about Prescott Bush? have you read any good bios of him?

   Reply

10. Casey said:

    January 1, 2020 at 7:37 pm

    What about the Famous lawyer Clarence Darrow or William Jennings Bryan

    Reply

    • Steve said:

      January 2, 2020 at 6:17 am

      I’m hoping to stumble across a particularly good biography of William Jennings Bryan…if you know of one please let me know! And, in general, if there is a specific and outstanding biography of *anyone* you know about, I’m all ears!

      Reply

      • HBM said:

        January 2, 2020 at 7:16 am

        There are two great reads for WJB. Michael Kazin’s A Godly Hero (2008) is the best biography in my opinion. As for the Scopes Trial, Edward Larson’s Summer for the Gods is excellent – worthy of the Pulitzer it won.

11. Wade said:

    January 3, 2020 at 5:59 pm

    I have a couple of recommendation of prominent Americans about whom you might like to read. I would live to read your reviews on the books and the characters. First is Joseph Smith Junior. Before being assassinated while running for President of the United States, he built what was the largest city in Illinois. He managed to negotiate a city charter that provided Nauvoo with its own army. At the same time Smith was mayor of Nauvoo, Lt. General of the Nauvoo Legion and Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
    The second leader of the same church, Brigham Young, led a huge migration to the Great Basin, colonized parts of 4 or 5 states and resisted the armed attempt of President Buchanan to destroy his people.
    Either one would be fascinating to learn about and to review biographies.

    Reply

    • Steve said:

      January 4, 2020 at 7:12 am

      Thanks for the suggestions – I’ll have to look into the them.

      Reply

12. John said:

    April 4, 2020 at 12:13 pm

    Hi – been a follower for a long time and am currently on my own presidential biography voyage. Wanted to pass along a couple biographies that I have read recently that I truly enjoyed.

    Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
    Unprecedented Power: Jesse Jones, Capitalism, and the Common Good

    Reply

    • Steve said:

      April 5, 2020 at 9:12 am

      Many thanks – I’ll look into these!

      Reply

13. mckinleyscott said:

    September 7, 2020 at 3:44 pm

    One of the best-written biographies I’ve ever read was Samuel Johnson by John Wain (1975). Just so well-written. Some biographies from poets and novelists work better than others (I’m still not too pleased with the purple mountain majesty prose of Carl Sandburg’s Lincoln).

    Reply

    • Steve said:

      September 8, 2020 at 11:23 am

      Thanks for the tip – I’ll have to look into it! I still vividly remember being disappointed by Sandburg’s series on LIncoln….

      Reply

14. Rick C said:

    October 14, 2020 at 5:42 pm

    I have over a 100 biographies from Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan to Nelson Mandela and Margaret Thatcher. My library also includes biographies of 18 United States Presidents (cherry picking my favourites). What I find curious is the large number of these biographies which have been published since 2000. Ninety percent!! Many of these biographies are also the “definitive” biography or at least one of the best of that historic figure. Are we in an age of better writers, better research?
    Why such excellent and prolific writing over the last twenty years? Any thoughts?

    Reply

    • HBM said:

      October 15, 2020 at 11:46 am

      Great questions and I will opine.

      The writing seems better because it is contemporary with us. The American Statesmen series from the late 19th century seems quaint now, but it was a great leap forward in scholarship then. Just like in 50 years, our scholarship will seem antiquated.

      Centralizing primary source materials has an impact. It is now easier to access the papers of presidents via both electronic means and scholarly publications. There are many “The Papers of …” in process. The completion of the Grant papers sparked a new energy to review his life and presidency.

      As for the definitive status, it is probably our lens. Why use version 1.0 when version 3.0 has enhanced, modern features? An author can correct the perceived – or real – failures, omissions or errors of prior authors. It’s the march of progress.

      That’s my 2 cents.

      Reply

15. James said:

    October 18, 2020 at 10:01 am

    How has your actual physical library grown from when you started this journey to now, years later? I always love watching my own library grow over the years.

    Reply

    • Steve said:

      October 18, 2020 at 4:40 pm

      Funny you should ask… my “shelf space” has doubled in the past few years but the number of books I need shelves for has quadrupled. In addition to something like 400 books/volumes of presidential biographies (which still pales in comparison to some) I have another 325 biographies of non-presidents. Still modest in comparison to some, I’ve simply run out of room. I have books stacked 4′ high in my basement, I have books collecting dust under furniture, I almost have books peering out of the crack between crown molding and the ceiling. But…I know exactly where everything is and I fully intend to read every book I own!

      Reply

      • HBM said:

        October 18, 2020 at 6:25 pm

        Do you use the space on the shelf behind the books?

        I’m impressed with the non-presidential material. Are they across-the-board or focused on certain subjects?

      • Steve said:

        October 19, 2020 at 5:16 am

        I once used that hidden space but then realized how many books I lost / forgot 🙂 I began “collecting” non-pres bio before I got hooked on the presidents, and once I was on the home-stretch of my presidential journey I started looking ahead and adding to my library of non-presidential books. They are more heavily weighted toward people “related” to the presidents (from Robert Morris and Eleanor Roosevelt to Adolf Hitler) but probably 1/4 of them cover folks like da Vinci, Mark Twain, Copernicus, Lou Gehrig,…

      • HBM said:

        October 20, 2020 at 11:10 am

        I’ve thinned down my non-Presidential holdings over the past few years to slightly over 100 (excluding a Churchill section). They too are mostly focused on people related to presidents or the presidency. With shelf space at a premium, I needed to weed out some of my ‘nonessential’ holdings.

16. Steve H said:

    February 5, 2021 at 9:15 am

    Steve, I would encourage you to reconsider listing Al Stump’s fictionalized hatchet job on Ty Cobb as one of your Best Biographies of all-time. That book, once considered the definitive biography of Cobb, has been discredited in recent times (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-knife-in-ty-cobbs-back-65618032/; https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-georgia-peach-stumped-by-the-storyteller/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Stump) as being largely falsified and painting Cobb in an inaccurately negative light. Because so many people (including me) hold you and your biography recommendations in such high esteem, I hate to see that particular book on your list. The recommendation of Lerhsen’s more recent bio of Cobb, however, is spot-on and is the only bio of Cobb that I would recommend (most of the others relied at least partly on Stump’s account as resource material).

    Reply

    • Steve said:

      February 5, 2021 at 9:29 am

      Thanks for the perspective. I went so far as to purchase Stump’s book a few years ago and was prepared to find a spot for it on my “next 24 months” reading list when I ran across an article in an academic journal that made an observation similar to yours. Concerned but uncertain what to believe, I left it there and didn’t take any further action given a lack of time to investigate further, but I’ll go ahead and place that biography in my “purgatory” category (off the master list) to be finally adjudicated when I have a few moments to dig deeper 🙂

      Reply

17. Maurice Frediere said:

    February 15, 2021 at 12:07 am

    If it’s something we could workshop it’d be great to include more foreign heads of government. At least some of the major ones of major countries like Bismarck, Adenauer, Kohl, and Merkel in Germany and Mitterand, Chirac, and Pompidou in France. I’ll do some searching around and reply to this comment in a few weeks with some suggestions if people here are interested.

    Reply

    • Steve said:

      February 15, 2021 at 6:37 am

      I’m particularly interested to ensure I’m capturing as many people of influence globally as possible. I’m scheduled to read a biography of Charles de Gaulle later this year (though I’m still debating which one) and I’m looking ahead to 2022 which might include a series on Hitler, Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. Just for starters…

      Reply

      • HBM said:

        February 15, 2021 at 9:55 am

        Robert Blake’s Disraeli is a first-rate biography. Disraeli’s counterpart William Gladstone gets a nice treatment by Roy Jenkins.

        Despite its age, Henry Kissinger’s Diplomacy (1994) has a wonderful bibliography which has sent me on many tangents. Although it is a sweeping history and not a biography, it provides great insight into the major influencers of the modern world.

      • Maurice Frediere said:

        March 31, 2021 at 1:21 am

        If it’d be of any use I’m happy to help compose a short list. I’d begun one before I ran across your website, it has a decent list of non-American leaders if you’d like me to share it with you.

      • Steve said:

        March 31, 2021 at 4:34 am

        That would be fabulous! A good percentage of the non-presidential books I read are based on suggestions I receive. Any thoughts are welcomed in any form!

      • Maurice Frediere said:

        August 22, 2021 at 3:37 pm

        sorry for the late reply, i’m a high school teacher and life has been awfully crazy these last few months. I’ll clean up the list and send it to you in a month or two.

18. Jordan said:

    March 10, 2021 at 8:47 am

    I see you have John Sugden’s Tecumseh on your list. While I’ve not read that one I can highly recommend his two-volume biography on Admiral Horatio Nelson – ‘Nelson: A Dream of Glory’ & ‘Nelson: The Sword Of Albion’. It’s the best biography I’ve read since Chernow’s Washington (Though I’ve not read as many as yourself, so a smaller sample size)

    It’s now the definitive Nelson biography and Sugden’s life work. Each volume is 800 pages so if you want a shorter biography on Nelson, the best single-volume is the 500 page-ish ‘The Pursuit of Victory’ by Roger Knight.

    I actually wish I had Knight’s biography when reading Sugden’s. Knight’s is full of maps, ship diagrams and a ‘cast of characters’ list of people at the back with short biographies to jog the memory. It would have made a handy guide to reference while reading Sugden.

    Love the site, my Presidential shelf grows with the biographies you’ve recommended.

    Reply

    • Steve said:

      March 10, 2021 at 8:51 am

      Thanks for the suggestions – I’ll have to investigate the Horatio Nelson biographies! And unfortunately for my shelf-space, this biography thing is an addiction. My presidential “shelf” has now overtaken the wall it once barely occupied. And together with the biographies of non-presidents, I’m beginning to think I need a larger house 🙂

      Reply

19. Travis Satterlee said:

    April 12, 2021 at 10:55 am

    I love this blog and the list is a great reference. In your ranking president bios would you score them differently if the list was for historians? I am seeking to collect the most detailed bio of each president. Is it safe to say I should get the multi volume options when possible? I want the book to cover their whole life not just their presidency. Let me know if your “best” recommendations still stand considering what I am seeking. The way I am reading the bios is one decade at a time. I read the portion of each bio for 1850 etc to get a 3d picture of where each president was at that time. It’s fascinating to see the characters interplay from each perspective.

    Reply

    • Steve said:

      April 13, 2021 at 6:03 am

      If I was creating a site for “historians” I would rank / score biographies differently. I would also read them with a different emphasis and would need to do far more work to pressure test the accuracy of the information they contain. Because I am NOT reading just for historians, I weight my ranking 50% for “readability” – how much I enjoy the writing style – and 50% for my layman’s view of the historical value of the biography. It is not rare for a reader of this site to note that I’ve missed an inaccuracy or failed to notice an author relying on outdated information.

      If you are seeking to collect the most detailed biographies of each president it is often the case you will want to take a hard look at the multi-volume series published for that president (if any exists). They do tend to contain the most “information” though in my experience they sometimes lack deep analysis…seeming to rely on the reader to synthesize and analyze on their own. In general I prefer fewer biographies with fewer extraneous facts and a thoughtful biographer willing to provide me with an interpretation of the facts which I can accept or reject.

      But to the extent you are looking for “comprehensive” rather than merely “detailed” my approach will tend to work reasonably well for you. I, too, am seeking biographies which present a person’s entire life rather than just undertaking an examination of that person’s presidency. I find it hard to really get into a person’s head and see the world from his/her perspective unless I have some senswe of that person’s entire life…

      Reply

20. Lynn Schlatter said:

    November 30, 2021 at 2:14 pm

    Have you taken a look at LeRoy Ashby’s Fighting the Odds: The Life of Senator Frank Church? Full disclosure: I didn’t finish it myself (another book beckoned and I can’t read more than one at a time), but what I read seemed to fit your “readable but thorough” criteria, with the added bonus of making me shout, “I’ve never heard of this guy! Why have I never heard of this guy?”

    Reply

    • Steve said:

      November 30, 2021 at 4:35 pm

      For what it’s worth, I don’t read more than one biography at the same time either (largely out of a latent fear I won’t be able to keep the two separate). As for the book you reference: I’ve never heard of Frank Church. How’d I overlook him given all the presidential biographies I read that covered his time in the Senate? I don’t *mind* that he’s unknown to me if it turns out he was consequential and the book is well-written. I can’t quite tell from the very few reviews I found online. But the fact you didn’t finish it leaves me wondering….!

      Reply

21. Ray said:

    January 3, 2022 at 9:03 am

    Steve,

    God bless you and your site. I am curious to see what you have in store for 2022. I noticed that you haven’t gotten around to some of the major non-US political figures – Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Napoleon, Bismarck, etc. Any of these on the horizon?

    Best,

    Ray

    Reply

    • Steve said:

      January 5, 2022 at 2:24 pm

      Funny you mention those names…I have Kershaw’s biography of Hitler, Taubman’s bio of Khrushchev and Andrew Roberts’s bio of Napoleon on the shelf in front of me. Just trying to figure out exactly when to sequence them in 🙂

      Reply

22. Jeremy said:

    January 28, 2022 at 4:18 am

    Hi Steve,

    Have you seen at all the new biography by Mike Duncan on Marquis de Lafayette? I noticed it wasn’t on your list yet and I was wondering if you could look into at some point? Have you heard anything if it would be worth the time to get into? I’ve been looking into it recently just haven’t had time to read it, so many other biographies to get to…

    Maybe as a more general question, are there certain clues you have picked up that you can gather before reading a biography to get a good idea whether it will be a worthwhile read or not? I don’t quite have the time to read everything so prefer to be as efficient as I can with what books I end up reading. I find your reviews very helpful and informative but sometimes there are books I’d like to read that you haven’t read and reviewed yet so I’m not sure if I should read them or not.

    Reply

    • Steve said:

      January 28, 2022 at 6:44 am

      I haven’t read the Duncan bio of Lafayette (published last summer) but I’ve got a couple friends who are reading it now…and I’m anxious to see what they think. I’ve not yet committed to my entire 2022 reading schedule at this point and that’s one I’m considering getting to in the next several months.

      On a broader note, I’ve not come up with an extremely reliable algorithm for picking great biographies. The word you use – clues – is a better way to think about what I do when trying to select bios to read. In general, I’m looking for biographies of compelling people that are well-written (–> engrossing), get at the heart of who the person was, and treats the reader to a view of the world as that person observed it.

      More simply put, I look for biographies which put me in the shoes of a fascinating person and allow me to walk away understanding how that person saw the world and knowing how and why they reacted to the world around them in the way they did.

      Over many years I’ve learned to trust certain authors, I’ve learned to be suspicious of prizes and awards (Pulitzers do NOT correlate – for me – to great biographies), I’ve learned to avoid Amazon ratings and I’ve discovered the value of relying on the opinions of certain Goodreads “friends” whose opinions align well with what I value in a great biography. But it’s an art and not a science, and although this usually leads me to reading books I really like, there are times when I find myself reading a “dud” 🙂

      Reply

23. Richard Dasheiff said:

    February 20, 2022 at 1:29 pm

    Steve,
    Since you have chosen a task (Best Biographies) which can not be completed in one lifetime, I will not make further recommendations. However, I have an observation which I submit to you and your fans (myself included).

    The word ‘hero’ occurs 5 times throughout the book titles.

    What is the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition?
    1) A name given (as in Homer) to men of superhuman strength, courage, or ability, favoured by the gods; at a later time regarded as intermediate between gods and men, and immortal.
    2) A man [or women]* distinguished by extraordinary valour and martial achievements; one who does brave or noble deeds; an illustrious warrior.
    3) A [person] who exhibits extraordinary bravery, firmness, fortitude, or greatness of soul, in any course of action, or in connexion with any pursuit, work, or enterprise; a [person]* admired and venerated for their achievements and noble qualities.
    *OED only uses male or men as pronoun, I modified it in 2&3 to include both genders.

    Of course I’ve read all the biographies of POTUS, and would pick George Washington as a hero.
    I am unqualified in saying Frederick Douglas and Fred Rogers are also my heroes.

    Not saying a hero makes for the subject of a best biography, but two of the above are on your lists. And MOST interesting, President Trump issued Executive Order 13978 to create a National Garden of American Heroes for 244 of them. Congress did not fund it, Biden revoked the Order, and historians like Michael Beschloss wrote “No president of the United States or federal government has any business dictating us citizens who our historical heroes should be.”

    Nevertheless, the list is interesting. See
    U.S. Department of the Interior
    National Garden of American Heroes

    Reply

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