 | Machiavelli in Hell by Sebastian De Grazia
Buy new: $14.78 / Used from: $1.31 Let us start with an exception. This beautifully written biography is my inspiration for this list. I will write a review of it as soon as I finish. In the meantime, let me say that the presentation is perfect for the walking iconclast that Machiavelli was.
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 | Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World, Second Edition by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl
Buy new: $28.00 / Used from: $14.72 Arendt, Hannah as presented by Elisabeth young-Bruehl. How better to start the alphabetical listing than with this biography of one of the 20th century's greatest public intellectuals? See my review.
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 | Forces In Motion: The Music And Thoughts Of Anthony Braxton (A Da Capo Paperback) by Graham Lock
Buy new: $18.95 / Used from: $5.94 Braxton, Anthony as presented by Graham Locke. OK, this is kind of an oddball selection. I am a fanboy. But AB is brilliant, funny, wierd and very engaging. And GL captures it all.
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 | The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $0.99 Club, The Metaphysical as told by Louis Menand. A quadruple biography of Charles Pierce, Oliver Wendell Holmes, William James and John Dewey. If you only want to read one book about American Pragmatism this should be the leading candidate.
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 | Emerson: The Mind on Fire (Centennial Books) by Robert D. Richardson Jr.
Buy new: $16.47 / Used from: $3.95 Emerson, Ralph Waldo as presented by Robert Richardson. Proof that a biography of a bookish man can be fascinating. A beautiful intro into the world of the Transcendentalists.
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 | All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery by Henry Mayer
Buy new: $11.05 / Used from: $6.50 Garrison, William Lloyd. Arguably the most important public intellectual America ever had. A biography as passionate as Garrison himself.
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 | Andrew Jackson: The Course of American Empire, 1767-1821. Vol. 1 (Volume 1) by Robert V. Remini
Buy new: $22.50 / Used from: $6.20 Jackson, Andrew presented by Robert Remini. These three volumes are the standard on this crazed, brilliant great man and his period. See my reviews on all three volumes.
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 | Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography (Galaxy Books) by Merrill D. Peterson
Buy new: $41.38 / Used from: $29.98 Jefferson, Thomas as presented by Merrill Peterson. My favorite one volume biography of Jefferson. Peterson is almost as learned as Jefferson was. I don't care how much you know about American history- you will learn from this book.
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 | The Republic of Letters: The Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison by James Morton Smith
Buy new: $101.25 / Used from: $75.00 Madison, James. Okay, I am cheating here. But these three volumes of letters along with James Morton Smith's detailed and learned connecting editorial notes is a dual biography of a great friendship.
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 | The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro
Buy new: $16.50 / Used from: $7.00 Moses, Robert as told by Robert Caro. Caro is the great exception to my rule that the author has to like and respect their subject. Caro doesn't seem to work that way. But he writes great great books.
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 | Plutarch: Lives of Noble Grecians and Romans (Modern Library Series, Vol. 1) by Plutarch
Buy new: $21.33 / Used from: $9.59 Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, complete in two volumes in The Modern Library edition. Greatest Group Biography Ever. Arguably the beginning of the genre. I have a review of the 1rst volume to try to explain why this book is so great.
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 | Charles Sumner by David Herbert Donald
Buy used from: $13.72 Sumner, Charles as written by David Herbert Donald. Donald's biography of Lincoln is more famous but I found this book to shine a greater light on our history.
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 | A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music by George E. Lewis
Buy new: $23.10 / Used from: $20.20 Again with the stretching but George Lewis' monumental tome is a biography of a musical tradition, the institution that nurtured that tradition and the myriad musicians who brought it forth collectively and individually. Serious, learned, funny, scathing, searching, sceptical, critical and panoptic. Very impressive indeed.
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