100 Books Like American Sphinx

I’ve never seen a man’s life told with such clarity and skill as Caro lays out LBJ’s journey. I was in awe of how clear-eyed Caro was about what his story is about: not the facts and dates of LBJ’s life, but what Caro saw in LBJ’s life about ambition, politics, and the powers that shape society.

Caro never for a second loses sight of the story he is telling, and what it is truly about: power, how to get it, and how to yield it. Caro’s adherence to the themes he found in LBJ’s story is inspiring—and completely informed how I approach storytelling.

Walter Isaacson’s Benjamin Franklin ranks among the top of Isaacson’s excellent biographies.

He provides thorough detail and background of Franklin’s life, examining him through the eyes of the quintessential American: an entrepreneur, a writer, a small businessman, a cosmopolitan, and a statesman (albeit lacking the higher offices). 

Isaacson briefly treats Franklin’s religious views and the reasons why Franklin moved away from the Puritan faith of his forebearers and embraced a creed more akin to deism. 

James Monroe is my favorite Founding Father. He may not be the “indispensable man” like Washington or have penned the most influential words in American history, ”We hold these truths to be self–evident,” but Monroe’s contributions to the United States and American history rank among the most important of the Founding Fathers. 

Per the title, Monroe was the “last” of such influential leaders and the last president in the Virginia dynasty of presidents. Unger provides an excellent, thorough walk-through of Monroe’s life and the influences that shaped his character, as well as the sacrifices Monroe made on behalf of the United States.

Per Unger, Monroe could have used his position and his influence for personal enrichment but regularly turned down such opportunities because he felt these were not worthy of an American leader. In the end, Monroe died with significant debts coupled with a legacy as the last Founding Father. 

Consider Joseph Ellis’ Founding Brothers more of a series of biographies–portraits of great individuals shaping history for the better–of such individuals during the most important period of their lives and in the history of our country.

Ellis’ masterful work focuses on the relationship between the Founding Fathers in the latter half of the eighteenth century, which, as the title suggests, was fraught with all the difficulties and rivalries one might expect as brothers. Figures like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington were men not unlike the rest of us, driven by passion, ambition, and the vision to see the American republic become a beacon of hope and freedom for the entire world. 

Yet, these passions and contrary views of the American experiment in self-government, at times, spilled out into the open, and Ellis does a masterful job elucidating the rivalries between these great men and what was at stake… show more.

This is a great biography, no question. One reason is the interesting truths it contains. As I read through the story of Thomas Jefferson's life, I realized that the eighteenth-century population had no concept of ethical principles. They did not understand the fallacy of divine right or divine-given equality. They did not understand that every single human is unique in every way and that humans are entirely different from every other human, plant, and animal.

They did not understand that every unique individual has the same need for life, liberty, and fulfillment, or that this need extends to all humans and animals regardless of race, gender, sex, age, social status, color, or any other variable. Nor did the people of Jefferson's day understand any of the ethical principles that humans must follow in their treatment of other life if they wish to survive on this planet.

This book made me… show more.

A classic American story following Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery from Virginia to the Pacific Coast and back again in the very early 1800s.

This book needs to be read not only by those interested in history but by all who would understand the origins of our nation. The complex personalities of Lewis, Clark, and Thomas Jefferson, who envisioned the journey come through in living color. 

Peterson was Peter Onuf’s predecessor as the Thomas Jefferson Chair at the University of Virginia. He was the author of two landmark studies of Jefferson—a one-volume biography, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation, probably the best single-volume biography of Jefferson, and The Jefferson Image in the American Mind. In The Jefferson Image, Peterson traces the history of Jefferson’s reputation from his death on July 4, 1826 until Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial on April 13, 1943. He shows that in death, as in life, Jefferson and his beliefs remained at the center of debates over what it means to be an American. This is an astounding work of intellectual and cultural history and deep erudition. Peterson concluded that by 1943 Jefferson had come to embody the nation’s ideals. Of course subsequent historians, as evidenced by this list, have continued to revisit and revise Jefferson.

Onuf, who held the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Chair at the University of Virginia, is the most accomplished student of Jefferson’s thought. In Jefferson’s Empire, Onuf interrogates Jefferson’s thinking about the meaning of the American Revolution. He places Jefferson’s thinking in the context of the Enlightenment showing that his vision of the American future arose from his idealized notions of nationhood and empire. Rather than see the US as the antithesis of empire, Onuf shows that Jefferson believed that Americans should craft a new form of republican empire that he believed would be a model for the rest of the world. Onuf recognizes, as Jefferson didn’t, that this vision depended on enslaved labor and the displacement of Indigenous people and he explores these contradictions. Onuf’s reading of the Declaration of Independence transformed my own thinking about that foundational document.   

Not a biography in the strict sense, this book is an investigation into “an American controversy” by a legal scholar that demonstrates the value of historical research and analysis by showing how Jefferson’s grandchildren, and white scholars and biographers following their lead, effectively conspired to hide the truth of Jefferson’s 30+ relationship with a woman he owned. And Gordon-Reed published this book a full year before the DNA-based analysis showed that Jefferson was overwhelmingly likely to have been the only father to Hemings’s four children.

This is another early American expedition lost to modern memory. In 1810, one of America’s richest men, John Jacob Astor, sent out two expeditions to exploit the riches of the western coast of North America. Unclaimed at the time.

One was to progress overland the other by sea. Both ended in personal and economic disaster. Yet, showcasing moments of heroism and cowardice, selflessness, and greed – but ultimately awakening America to this untapped potential of this rich, rugged, and unforgiving territory.

Stark writes like a novelist weaving rich, character studies Into the narrative that helped invest me in the people and their mostly, unfortunate fates.