New Books In Biography

Caterina Corner lived a life that was composed of a mixture of adventure, power, and tragedy. The daughter of a Venetian patrician and merchant, she was married to the king of Cyprus while barely a teenager. Within two years of voyaging to her new home in 1472, she became a mother, a widow, and the ruler of Cyprus, over which she reigned until she was dethroned by her Venetian benefactors in 1489. In Daughter of Venice: Caterina Corner, Queen of Cyprus and Woman of the Renaissance (Yale University Press, 2015), Holly Hurlburt describes the life and artistic legacy of this remarkable woman. As she explains, much of our image of her is shaped by the portraits and other artwork of her, both from her reign and afterward. In combination with the extant documentary record, they reveal how Caterina maintained and projected her authority as queen in a tumultuous time while facing challenges from several Mediterranean powers. Ever after her removal to a community in northern Venice, she maintained her influence and di

In his acclaimed biography Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press (Amistad, Reprint Edition, 2017), James McGrath Morris explores the fascinating life of pioneering black female journalist Ethel Payne. Backed by exhaustive archival research, Morris traces Payne’s role in documenting the civil rights struggle during the decades following World War II, before her later impact as the first female African American radio and television commentator on a national network. The New York Times has described Eyes on the Struggle as an “an important and often absorbing new book,” while the Chicago Tribune has contended that Morris’ beautifully written and carefully researched new book “gives Payne’s ground-breaking work the attention it deserves.” Morris’ other books include Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power, which Booklist placed on its 2010 list of the ten best biographies, and The Rose Man of Sing Sing: A True Tale of Life, Murder, and Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journali

Henry and Emily Folger were linked together not just by their love for one another, but their shared passion for the works of William Shakespeare. In Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), Stephen H. Grant describes how the two of them devoted their lives to acquiring Shakespeare’s works and related artifacts and how that collection became the cornerstone of one of the great cultural institutions in the world today. Though his interest in Shakespeare developed during his time at Amherst College, Henry Folger chose a career in business and began working for Standard Oil while in law school. It was through his membership in a literary circle that he met Emily, a Vassar graduate who taught in Brooklyn. As husband and wife they spent their time combing through catalogues, traveling, and engaging in constant correspondence with booksellers and others in search of First Folios and other rare works of early modern English literature. While they were retice

John William McCormack served as Speaker of the House of Representatives throughout most of the 1960s, during which time he shepherded the legislation of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program through the chamber. As Garrison Nelson demonstrates in John William McCormack: A Political Biography (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017), this was the culmination of a long political career that stretched back over a half-century to the impoverished South Boston neighborhood where McCormack was raised. There, in an environment where ethnic and class identities defined ones political prospects, McCormack covered up his father’s Scots Canadian heritage to establish his Irish Catholic bona fides. First elected to the House of Representatives in 1928, he was well positioned to benefit from the dramatic transformation in the fortunes of the Democratic Party during the Great Depression, becoming the House Majority Leader. As Nelson demonstrates, it was McCormack’s personal relationships which shaped his career, most notably those wi

In his new book The Inkblots: Hermann Rorschach, His Iconic Test, and The Power of Seeing (Crown, 2017), Damion Searls presents the first biography of Hermann Rorschach and the history of the Rorschach Test. A story that is largely untold, Searls starts with the childhood of Rorschach and brings readers through his growth as a psychiatrist as he created an experiment to probe the mind using a set of ten inkblots. As a visual artist, Rorschach incorporated his ability to think about visuals and his belief that what is seen is more important than what we say. After his early death, Rorschach’s Test found its way to America being used by the military, to test job applicants, to evaluate defendants and parents in custody battles and people suffering from mental illness. In addition, it has been used throughout advertising and incorporated in Hollywood and popular culture. A tragic figure, and one of the most influential psychiatrists in the twentieth century, The Inkblots allows readers to better understand how R

During a life that stretched from the Progressive era to the 1960s, A. J. Muste dedicated himself to fighting against war and the exploitation of working Americans. In American Gandhi: A. J. Muste and the History of Radicalism in the Twentieth Century (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), Leilah Danielson describes the course of Muste’s career as a pacifist, labor organizer, and civil rights campaigner, explaining the development of his ideology within the context of his activism. An immigrant to America, Muste pursued a career as a Protestant minister until the pressures created by America’s entry into World War I forced him to resign from his pastorate. His work supporting striking textile workers in in Lawrence, Massachusetts heralded the start of a period of involvement in the labor movement, during which time he became a leading figure at Brookwood Labor College and attempted to establish a labor-based political party during the Great Depression. As another war approached in the late 1930s Muste retu

Though best remembered today for his brief tenure as the ninth president of the United States, William Henry Harrison’s most significant contribution to American history was his service as a general in the War of 1812. In William Henry Harrison and the Conquest of the Ohio Country: Frontier Fighting in the War of 1812 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), David Curtis Skaggs recounts Harrison’s military career and the lessons he learned that brought him national acclaim. The son of a Virginia aristocrat, Harrison rejected a medical career in favor of service in the United States Army. While serving as an aide to General Anthony Wayne in the 1790s, he learned the challenges of campaigning in what was then the northwestern frontier of the United States. These lessons stood him in good stead later when, as governor of Indiana Territory, he faced the growing challenge of Tecumseh’s confederacy, the defeat of which became his claim to fame. Yet as Skaggs demonstrates it was his subsequent victory over British fo

Calamity Jane was a celebrity of the 19th century American West, yet the woman portrayed in the newspapers and dime novels was one very different from the actual person. In The Life and Legends of Calamity Jane (University of Oklahoma Press, 2014), Richard Etulain sorts through over a century of fiction and half-truths to uncover who Calamity Jane was in real life. Born Martha Canary, she was orphaned at a young age and left to provide for her siblings. Working a variety of jobs, she came to Deadwood in 1876, where she soon received national press attention both for her unusual persona and her brief association with “Wild Bill” Hickok. Yet these accounts were usually more fabrication than fact, and often did not reflect the difficult circumstances of her life. Suffering from alcoholism, she lived an itinerant and unstable existence, one in which her drinking impeded her efforts to provide for herself and her daughter and led to her early death. Etulain’s biography gets to the truth of Calamity Jane’s life, as

Richard Crockatt is an Emeritus Professor in the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia. His book, Einstein & Twentieth-Century Politics: ‘A Salutary Moral Influence‘ (Oxford University Press, 2016), is an intellectual biography of Einstein’s political thought. As one the most compelling figures of the twentieth century, Einstein first gained public attention for his scientific theories placing him on the world stage. Developing a broad network of liberal internationalists he had the opportunity to speak for and support some of the most critical political issues of his day. Crockatt follows him through his early days and his connections with men like Bertrand Russell, H.G. Wells and Albert Schweitzer that shaped his thought as a global public intellectual. From his position of professional influence and personal charm, he worked on behalf of pacifism, Zionism, world government, freedom, and against the arms race. Einstein’s positions emerged from deep moral conviction yet his thought rema

Many scholars of baseball and American sports have focused on Ty Cobb as an integral and controversial character in the history of baseball. However, scholars have ignored the ways in which the story of Ty Cobb intersects with ideas of turn-of-the-century masculinity and honor. Steve Tripp in his new book Ty Cobb, Baseball, and American Manhood (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016) explores the ways in which Cobb proved to be an interesting case study in the role that manhood played in the lives of men that found themselves in a changing American landscape. Tripp argues that the men in Cobb’s life and the values they embodied–honor, personal autonomy, nerve, and will–played an integral role in Cobb’s formation of his own masculinity. Not only does Tripp focus on Cobb, but the people that granted him fame and disdain: the fans of turn-of-the-century baseball. Steve Tripp is currently Professor of History at Grand Valley State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show

Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte was a celebrity in 19th century America thanks in no small measure to her brief marriage to Napoleon Bonaparte’s youngest brother Jerome. In A Woman of Two Worlds: Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte (Maryland Historical Society, 2016), Alexandra Deutsch draws upon the documents and artifacts Elizabeth’s family donated to describe her life. The daughter of a wealthy American merchant, her charm and beauty captivated Jerome, who married her in 1803 only to leave her and her unborn two years later at the emperors insistence. Though the Bonapartes sought to distance themselves from Elizabeth, she spent the next several decades doggedly fighting to win acceptance of her son and his children as members of the Bonaparte line, all while building a fortune of her own. Deutsch details these efforts by using Elizabeth’s possessions to describe the various ways in which she associated herself with the Bonaparte family, an effort that was every bit as important to her as the ongoing legal struggle

Tim Brady’s book His Father’s Son: The Life of General Ted Roosevelt, Jr. (NAL, 2017) is not just the biography of the eldest son and namesake of America’s 26th president, but an account of a life that was adventurous and consequential in its own right. Coming of age in the years in which his Theodore Roosevelt served as president, Ted at times struggled to measure up to the daunting example set by his dynamic father. While often emulating his father’s path, Ted nonetheless sought to be judged on his own achievements, and distinguished himself in both business and in command during the First World War. To many Ted was on his way to becoming the second Roosevelt to occupy the White House, yet his electoral career came to a premature end in 1924 with his loss to Al Smith in the race for the governorship of New York a loss which paved the way for his subsequent political eclipse by his distant cousin, Franklin. Yet as Brady demonstrates, the growing animosity between the two branches of the family did nothing to

The term historical fiction covers a wide range from what the mystery writer Josephine Tey once dubbed “history with conversation” to outright invention shading into fantasy. But behind every story set in the past lies the past itself, as re-created by scholars from the available evidence. This interview features Helen Rappaport, whose latest work reveals the historical background behind the Masterpiece Theater miniseries Victoria, due to air in the United States this month. Rappaport served as historical consultant to the show. The Queen Victoria who gave her name to an age famous for a prudishness so extreme that even tables had limbs, not legs, is nowhere evident in Rappaport’s book, the television series, or the novel by Daisy Goodwin, also titled Victoria, that gave rise to the series. Victoria: The Heart and Mind of a Young Queen (Harper Design, 2017) explores in vivid, compelling prose the letters, diaries, and other documents associated with the reign of a strong-minded, passionate, eager, inexperien

Clyde Warrior was a Ponca Indian who in the 1960s was one of the founders of the “Red Power” movement for the rights of Native Americans. While his name may not be as well-known as that of other civil rights leaders of that decade, as Paul McKenzie-Jones reveals in this biography Clyde Warrior: Tradition, Community, and Red Power (University of Oklahoma Press, 2015), he was as just as pivotal a figure as many such figures who are household names today. Growing up on his grandparents farm in Oklahoma, Warrior was immersed in Ponca culture and became renowned for his prowess in the Fancy Dance competitions in the postwar Southwest. In college he embraced student activism, and went from participation in Indian student groups to the establishment of the National Indian Youth Council in 1961. As an advocate of self-determination, he was soon at the forefront of the movement for greater Native American rights, even coining the phrase Red Power in 1966 to encapsulate his goals. As McKenzie-Jones demonstrates, Warrio

Readers of all ages know E. B. White’s work. Charlotte’s Web is the first book many children are read aloud. Elements of Style remains an essential reference book. Almost everyone has a favorite writing by White: his legendary essays; his humorous New Yorker captions and columns; his short stories about New York City; Stuart Little; The Trumpet of the Swan. Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016) is the first illustrated biography of this great American literary icon. Using her signature collage technique and in prose worthy of White himself, award-winning children’s book creator Melissa Sweet brings to life the writer, reporter, poet, animal lover, and doting father. His personal letters, photographs, and family memorabilia, all beautifully woven together with Sweet’s detailed artwork, help capture the essence of the man himself, not just his accomplishments. Melissa Sweet has illustrated nearly 100 children’s books from board books to picture books and non-fiction titles. She

“Artaud lived with his neck placed firmly in the noose.” -Bauhaus* David Shafer’s new biography, Antonin Artaud (Reaktion Books and the University of Chicago Press, 2016), situates the life of this enigmatic and fascinating figure in historical context. From his bourgeois family background, through a life that included a variety of physical and mental health challenges, drug use, and institutionalization, Shafer traces the ways that Artaud’s intellectual and artistic development was shaped by broader historical and political events and forces. An actor of stage and screen, a poet, and theatre director, Artaud emerges in these chapters as the embodiment of the French revolutionary tradition in the cultural realm. Shafer traces his subjects geographic movements from his Mediterranean origins to the streets of Paris, and on to other destinations, Mexico and Ireland among these. In addition to these sites, Artaud held in his imagination a number of other locales, including the physical and cultural landscapes o

As the founder of Sinn Fin and a leading architect of Irish independence, Arthur Griffith ranks as one of the founding fathers of modern Ireland. In his book Arthur Griffith (Merrion Press, 2015), Owen McGee offers a biography of the writer and patriot framed within the context of the Irish nationalist movement. The son of a Dublin printer, Griffith was active in nationalist politics at an early age. His own experience in publishing led Griffith to start his own review journals, which served as a platform for his ideas and which were read by many of the leading writers and activists in Ireland. The First World War and the Rising that followed brought Griffith’s vision of parliamentary abstention into the mainstream of Irish politics, with Griffith and the other Sinn Fin victors in the general election that followed the war refusing to take their seats in Parliament and instead forming their own representative body, the Dil ireann. A leader of the nascent Irish government, Griffith served in a number of key po

How should we understand the interwar years in Britain? In Prince of Tricksters: The Incredible True Story of Netley Lucas, Gentleman Crook (University of Chicago Press, 2016) Matt Houlbrook, Professor of Cultural History at the University of Birmingham,tells the fascinating and complex story of Netley Lucas, a character whose fragmented and complex story offers clues to the social changes of the period. Netley’s career as confidence trickster, fraudulent journalist and editor, and creator of counterfeit royal biographies, forms the basis of an engagement with anxieties over class boundaries, the reassertion of social norms, and the nature of the historical source. The book is resplendent with a complex cast of characters and offers a rich portrait of the period. Houlbrook raises the question of how to tell the story of the trickster, if it is possible to capture a life of half-truths and duplicity, and the struggle of historical practice, ultimately causing us to question the possibility of history itself. T

Born just five years after the abolition of slavery, W. E. B. Du Bois died the night before Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his I Have a Dream speech at the March on Washington in 1963. In the many decades between, W. E. B. Du Bois contributed as much to the political and social advancement of African Americans as any other figure in history. W. E. B. Du Bois: Revolutionary Across the Color Line (Pluto Press, 2016) offers an accessible and brief introduction to the life and times of W. E. B. Du Bois. It takes in his many achievements, such as being the first black man to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University and co-founding the NAACP, and sets them alongside the seismic political changes of the twentieth century many of which Du Bois weighed in on, including anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggles across Asia and Africa. The author reveals a Du Bois who was focused not just on the immediate question of African American rights, but also took up the question of socialism, the rise of communism, and the

The remarkable story of Henry Ossian Flipper, a young man born into slavery on the eve of the Civil War, and his struggle for recognition left its mark on our nations history. Through extensive research of military documents, court records, appeals, and from Flippers personal journals and published papers, Henry Ossian Flipper: West Point’s First Black Graduate (Wild Horse Press, 2015) captures the sum and substance of a nation torn apart by political ambitions and extreme prejudices and reveals the uncertainty of acceptance and intolerance of blacks in America following Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. In 1878, Flipper seemed destined for a long military career. Four years later, he was on trial at Fort Davis, Texas, for embezzlement of government funds and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. But his journey through the West did not end in West Texas, it was only the beginning. Before Flipper’s life was over his adventures would take him through Mexico, South America, and Arizona. It was