Political autobiographies
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What can we learn about history, governance, and democracy from the autobiographies of politicians? This call invites panelists interested in examining how autobiographies by African politicians and political workers (political advisors, mobilizers, ministers, etc.) serve as repositories of intellectual traditions and responses to contemporary crises. By centering autobiographies, this panel explores how African leaders self-represent their own visions of concepts such as democracy, socialism, environmentalism, and human rights. The panel aims to investigate how African political autobiographies engage with multiple, intersecting crises of our time: gender inequalities, socio-economic disparities, the challenges to liberal democracy, conflict and militarism, and climate change. This call invites contributions that consider how autobiographical texts serve as sites of knowledge production that transcend conventional academic boundaries and offer alternative frameworks for understandi
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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 inom 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 individ interesting?
Through Barack Obama’s boo
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15 fascinating political biographies to take you through the election and beyond
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If you're interested in politics but are in the mood for something other than election coverage, you might try turning off the news and cracking open a biography or autobiography of a past political figure instead.
For everyone looking for inspiration from history, Amazon Books senior editor Jon Foro compiled his list of top political biographies and autobiographies. He focused on American politics and stayed away from very recent and hyper-political publications.
Here are his picks, listed in no particular order, with descriptions in his own words:
'Personal History' by Katharine Graham
"Graham recounts her time as publisher of the Washington Post and its coverage of Watergate and the Pentagon Papers, an altog