New Books In Biography

Julius Caesar was no aspiring autocrat seeking to realize the imperial future but an unusually successful republican leader who was measured against the Republic's traditions and its greatest heroes of the past. Catastrophe befell Rome not because Caesar (or anyone else) turned against the Republic, its norms, and institutions, but because Caesar's extraordinary success mobilized a determined opposition that ultimately preferred to precipitate civil war rather than accept its political defeat. Based on painstaking re-analysis of the ancient sources in the light of recent advances in our understanding of the participatory role of the People in the republican political system, a strong emphasis on agents' choices rather than structural causation, and profound skepticism toward the facile determinism that often substitutes for historical explanation, Julius Caesar and the Roman People (Cambridge University Press, 2021) offers a radical reinterpretation of a figure of profound historical importance who stands at

In his new book, Hajj to the Heart: Sufi Journeys Across the Indian Ocean (University of North Carolina Press, 2021) and is available as an open-access enhanced edition, Scott Kugle follows the life and legacy of the influential Sufi scholar of Arabic, hadith, and scriptural hermeneutics shaykh ‘Ali Muttaqi. ‘Ali Muttaqi left South Asia for hajj (Mecca) where he eventually settled as an exile. Kugle provides a microscopic history of this figure by engaging a wealth of diverse Arabic and Persian manuscripts, such as his devotional writings or political orientations. This story also maps the legacy of ‘Ali Muttaqi via his disciples or the Muttaqi lineage across the Indian Ocean world into three generations that lead us into political contestations and courtly intrigue, such as with the Mughals in Gujarat, debates of the authoritative roles and legitimacy of saints and the mahdi (messiah) in Sufism, relationship between Sufism and jurisprudence, and scholarship of hadith. The story told here of the journeys by 1

On an otherwise normal weekday in the 1980s, commuters on busy Route 1 in central New Jersey noticed an alarming sight: a man in a suit and tie dashing across four lanes of traffic, then scurrying through a narrow underpass as cars whizzed by within inches. The man was William “Holly” Whyte, a pioneer of people-centered urban design. Decades before this perilous trek to a meeting in the suburbs, he had urged planners to look beyond their desks and drawings: “You have to get out and walk.” American Urbanist: How William H. Whyte's Unconventional Wisdom Reshaped Public Life (Island Press, 2022) shares the life and wisdom of a man whose advocacy reshaped many of the places we know and love today—from New York’s bustling Bryant Park to preserved forests and farmlands around the country. Holly’s experiences as a WWII intelligence officer and leader of the genre-defining reporters at Fortune Magazine in the 1950s shaped his razor-sharp assessments of how the world actually worked—not how it was assumed to work. His

Vivekananda, Swami Vivekananda's Vedantic Cosmopolitanism (Oxford UP, 2022) argues, is best understood as a cosmopolitan Vedantin who developed novel philosophical positions through creative dialectical engagement with both Indian and Western thinkers. Inspired by his guru Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda reconceived Advaita Vedanta as a nonsectarian, life-affirming philosophy that provides an ontological basis for religious cosmopolitanism and a spiritual ethics of social service. He defended the scientific credentials of religion while criticizing the climate of scientism beginning to develop in the late nineteenth century. He was also one of the first philosophers to defend the evidential value of supersensuous perception on the basis of general epistemic principles. Finally, he adopted innovative cosmopolitan approaches to long-standing philosophical problems. Bringing him into dialogue with numerous philosophers past and present, Medhananda demonstrates the sophistication and enduring value of Vivekananda's

Rickson Gracie is one of the most fascinating professional athletes in the world. It is not hyperbole to call him a "living legend". A scion of a famed family of professional fighters, he was arguably the greatest Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner of his time. He went on to fight professional mixed martial arts in Japan where he retired undefeated and achieved a level of fame that is difficult to imagine. Despite being born into an elite family in Rio de Janeiro and blessed with an incredible physique and striking good looks, Rickson Gracie has seen more than his share of difficulties. In Breathe: A Life in Flow, he reflects upon his life, including his father's unorthodox parenting decisions and how he overcame the horrific loss of his first-born son. Peter Maguire, who holds a PhD in history from Columbia University and has published several books on the Nuremberg trials and the Khmer Rouge genocide, has been a Jiu Jitsu student and friend of Rickson since the early 1990s. Together they co-authored, Breathe:

In this raw and thought-provoking memoir, Dowd brings us on her journey though the Ferguson uprising into abolition. For years Elle Dowd considered herself an advocate for justice, but her well-meaning support always took a back burner to what Martin Luther King Jr. called the tension-free, ordered "negative peace" of white moderates. Then Michael Brown, a Black man, was murdered by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, and the subsequent Uprising changed everything. In Baptized in Tear Gas: From White Moderate to Abolitionist (Broadleaf Books, 2021), minister and activist Elle Dowd tells the gripping story of her transformation into an Assata Shakur-reading, courthouse-occupying abolitionist with an arrest record, hungry for the revolution. Thanks to deep relationships with people in Ferguson and St. Louis, and to experiencing a fraction of the system for herself--including the fear of rubber bullets, the shock of sound cannons, and running from tear gas--Dowd fully committed to the work of anti-rac

People with disabilities have always struggled to make ends meet. Finding a job you can actually do, a housing situation you can afford that meets your needs, and simply going about the various daily tasks most of us take for granted all compound to make life under capitalism especially challenging. This makes the many disabled people who not only rise to meet their life-circumstances but go beyond them particularly inspiring. One such figure in this category would be E.T. Kingsley, a socialist activist at the turn of the 20th century. After an injury working on railway lines in Montana left him a double-amputee, Kingsley traveled west, first to California and then eventually to British Columbia where he would work as a political speaker, candidate for office, editor and writer in the radical left. His life is the focus of the book under discussion today, Able to Lead: Disablement, Radicalism, and the Political Life of E.T. Kingsley (U British Columbia Press, 2021) coauthored by Ravi Malhotra and Benjamin Isi

Today I talked to Tinatin Japaridze about her book Stalin's Millennials: Nostalgia, Trauma, and Nationalism (Lexington Books, 2022). In this timely interview, Japaridze discusses not only the legacy of Stalin, but also her personal reflections in growing up in Georgia during the Cold War, and her experiences in the immediate drama of post Cold-War Moscow. To add to her both personal and professional reflections on legacy and nationalism, she attended an American school where she integrated into the west. Thus her reflections on McDonaldization and its fallout are both driven by an acute level of professional study as well as personal empathy for the individuals who live in the times we come to call historical. This same interest in both the human and the institutional informs her exploration of memory and particularly museums as sites of the construction of nostalgia and shame. In a compelling moment, Japaridze notices a brand new pair of boots in an exhibit that labeled them Stalin's.  She takes us into our

Janica Towne Anderson (author of Zen Odyssey) is a master falconer and has been a student and teacher of esoteric traditions for fifty years. She has worked as a research assistant in the psychology department at Harvard University and served as an instructor at Esalen Institute. She founded Big Sur Tapes, which preserved and published audio archives from teachers such as Ram Dass, Buckminster Fuller, and Alduous Huxley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

When Lily and Alex entered a packed gymnasium in Queens, New York in 1972, they barely recognized their son. The boy who escaped to America with them, who was bullied as he struggled to learn English and cope with family tragedy, was now a young man who had discovered and secretly honed his basketball talent on the outdoor courts of New York City. That young man was Ernie Grunfeld, who would go on to win an Olympic gold medal and reach previously unimaginable heights as an NBA player and executive. In By the Grace of the Game: The Holocaust, a Basketball Legacy, and an Unprecedented American Dream (Triumph Books, 2022), Dan Grunfeld, once a basketball standout himself at Stanford University, shares the remarkable story of his family, a delicately interwoven narrative that doesn't lack in heartbreak yet remains as deeply nourishing as his grandmother's Hungarian cooking, so lovingly described. The true improbability of the saga lies in the discovery of a game that unknowingly held the power to heal wounds, bui

The First Black Archaeologist: A Life of John Wesley Gilbert (Oxford UP, 2022) reveals the untold story of a pioneering African American classical scholar, teacher, community leader, and missionary. Born into slavery in rural Georgia, John Wesley Gilbert (1863-1923) gained national prominence in the early 1900s, but his accomplishments are littleknown today. Using evidence from archives across the U.S. and Europe, from contemporary publications, and from newly discovered documents, this book chronicles, for the first time, Gilbert's remarkable journey. As we follow Gilbert from the segregated public schools of Augusta, Georgia, to the lecture halls of Brown University, to his hiring as the first black faculty member of Augusta's Paine Institute, and through his travels in Greece, western Europe, and the Belgian Congo, we learn about the development of African American intellectual and religious culture, and about the enormous achievements of an entire generation of black students and educators. Readers intere

Listen to this interview of Stephen Heard, Professor of Biology at the University of New Brunswick. We talk about his book The Scientist’s Guide to Writing: How to Write More Easily and Effectively Throughout Your Scientific Career, 2nd ed. (Princeton UP, 2022), we talk about writing when it's a verb, we talk about writing when it's a choice, and we talk about writing when it's the science. Stephen Heard : "Especially for early-career scientists there's a risk of their writing entering into a positive feedback loop with the writing as it is in the literature. And really, we do this to them, we professors and instructors. We say, 'Next week, you're going to hand in a lab report. Write out this experiment you did,' and we say, quote, 'and write like the scientific literature,' unquote. Well, that's a horrible thing to tell anyone to do, because unfortunately, much of our literature isn't particularly well written. We love our acronyms, we love really long noun phrases, we love the passive voice, and so on. And

Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America (University of Illinois Press, 2020) reveals the previously hidden impact of Ebony magazine as a major producer and disseminator of popular black history during the second half of the twentieth century. Far from dismissing Ebony as a consumer magazine with limited political or educational importance, E. James West highlights the value editors, readers, and advertisers placed upon Ebony's role as a "history book." Benefitting from unprecedented access to new archives at Chicago State and Emory University, West also offers the first substantive biographical account of the writing and philosophy of Lerone Bennett Jr., who used his position at Ebony to emerge as one of the twentieth century's most influential popular black historians. Focusing on Lerone Bennett's role within Johnson Publishing, and assessing Ebony's broader historical coverage, this book uses the magazine as a window into the transition of black history from the margi

Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa (Indiana University Press, 2021) by Brian J. Peterson is a thoroughly researched biography of Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso. Peterson sketches Sankara’s rise to power in the early 1980s and focuses specifically on how his military experiences, educational background, and community of mentors, family, and friends shaped his radicalism. Peterson frames Sankara within a second-generation of anti-colonial radicals who both admired anti-colonial luminaries like Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere, but also refined their anti-colonial perspective to critique the limits of their leadership. We learn that during this moment of late-Cold War and decolonization, Sankara used his international platforms to resist and condemn neo-colonialism, imperialism, and European-American networks of surveillance and subterfuge while tackling corruption, poverty, gender discrimination, and environmental issues in Burkina Faso. Sankara’s fierce commitment to r

Funny music is often dismissed as light and irrelevant, but Weird Al Yankovic’s fourteen successful studio albums prove there is more going on than comedic music's reputation suggests. In this book, for the first time, the parodies, original compositions, and polka medleys of the Weird Al universe finally receive their due respect. In Weird Al, Seriously, musicologist Lily Hirsch weaves together original interviews with the prince of parody himself, creating a fresh take on comedy and music’s complicated romance. She reveals that Yankovic’s jests have always had a deeper meaning, addressing such topics as bullying, celebrity, and racial and gender stereotypes. Weird Al is undeterred by those who say funny music is nothing but a low-brow pastime. And thank goodness. With his good-guy grace still intact, Yankovic remains unapologetically and unmistakably himself. Reveling in the mischief and wisdom of Yankovic’s forty-year career, this book is an Al-expense-paid tour of a true comedic and musical genius. Franz

On September 9th, 2001, Ahmed Shah Massoud—called one of the greatest guerilla leaders in history, alongside names like Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh, was assassinated by two Al-Qaeda suicide bombers. Coming just two days before the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Massoud’s assassination is thus one of those points in history that invites couterfactuals: was it a warning of things to come? And what might have happened in Afghanistan had the assassination failed? Afghan Napoleon: The Life of Ahmad Shah Massoud (Haus Publishing, 2021) guides readers through the guerilla’s life—including his campaigns against the Communists, the Soviets and the Taliban—and how he became a target for Al Qaeda. The book was written by legendary journalist Sandy Gall, who traveled to Afghanistan on many occasions, meeting with Massoud several times. Carlotta Gall—who worked with her father Sandy to report and write Afghan Napoleon—joins us for this episode of the Asian Review of Books podcast. She is the Istanbul Bureau Chief fo

Priscilla Joyner was born into the world of slavery in 1858 North Carolina and came of age at the dawn of emancipation. Raised by a white slaveholding woman, Joyner never knew the truth about her parentage. She grew up isolated and unsure of who she was and where she belonged--feelings that no emancipation proclamation could assuage. Her life story--candidly recounted in an oral history for the Federal Writers' Project--captures the intimate nature of freedom. Using Joyner's interview and the interviews of other formerly enslaved people, historian Carole Emberton uncovers the deeply personal, emotional journeys of freedom's charter generation--the people born into slavery who walked into a new world of freedom during the Civil War. From the seemingly mundane to the most vital, emancipation opened up a myriad of new possibilities: what to wear and where to live, what jobs to take and who to love. Although Joyner was educated at a Freedmen's Bureau school and married a man she loved, slavery cast a long shadow.

What is education? Most of the time, we have little patience for this question because we take the answer to be obvious: we identify education with school learning. This book focuses on education outside of the school context as a basis for criticizing and improving school learning. Following the examples of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Dewey, Arcilla seeks to harmonize schooling with a more pervasive education we are all naturally undergoing. He develops a philosophical theory of education that stresses the experience of being led out —a theory latent in the Latin term, “educere”— by examining the road movies of Wim Wenders. Wim Wenders's Road Movie Philosophy: Education Without Learning (Bloomsbury, 2020) contributes both to our understanding of another crucial kind of education our schooling could better serve, and to our appreciation of what unifies and distinguishes Wenders's achievements in cinema. René V. Arcilla is Professor of Philosophy of Education in the Steinhardt School of Education, at New Yo

Today I talked to Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant about her book To Live More Abundantly: Black Collegiate Women, Howard University, and the Audacity of Dean Lucy Diggs Slowe (University of Georgia Press, 2022). How have Black women fostered belonging in higher education institutions that have persisted in marginalizing them? Focusing on the career of Lucy Diggs Slowe, the first trained African American student affairs professional in the United States, this book examines how her philosophy of "living more abundantly" envisioned educational access and institutionalized campus thriving for Black college women. Born in 1883, Slowe was orphaned at a young age, raised by a paternal aunt, and earned a scholarship to attend Howard University in 1904. As an undergraduate, she helped found Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first African American sorority in the United States, and served as its first president. After graduating valedictorian of her 1908 class, she excelled as a secondary school teacher and administrator and became a

This book presents for the first time in English a complete translation of the Expository Commentary to the Daode jing, written by the Daoist monk Cheng Xuanying in the 7th century CE. This commentary is a quintessential text of Tang dynasty Daoist philosophy and of Chongxuanxue or Twofold Mystery teachings. Cheng Xuanying proposes a reading of the ancient Daode jing that aligns the text with Daoist practices and beliefs and integrates Buddhist concepts and techniques into the exegesis of the Daode jing. Building on the philosophical tradition of Xuanxue authors like Wang Bi, Cheng read the Daode jing in light of Daoist religion. Cheng presents Laozi, the presumed author of the Daode jing, as a bodhisattva-like sage and savior, who wrote the Daode jing to compassionately guide human beings to salvation. Salvation is interpreted as a metaphysical form of immortality, reached by overcoming the dichotomy of being and non-being, and thus also life and death. Cheng's philosophical outlook ties together the ancient