The Greatest Western Biography Books of All Time

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This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 759 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
300 The Life of Samuel Johnson James Boswell 1791 British English
304 The Double Helix James D. Watson 1968 American English
306 The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley 1965 American English
334 Parallel Lives Plutarch 100 Greek Greek
379 The Second World War Winston Churchill 1948 British English
395 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein 1933 American English
451 Hiroshima John Hersey 1946 American English
515 Lives of the Artists Giorgio Vasari 1550 Italian Italian
639 Reflections on the Revolution in France Edmund Burke 1790 British English
689 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin 1791 American English
716 Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler 1925 German German
788 Roots Alex Haley 1976 American English
851 Essays, First And Second Series Ralph Waldo Emerson 1841 American English
868 Henry James Leon Edel 1953 American English
909 The Warmth Of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson 2010 American English
913 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass 1845 American English
965 Eminent Victorians Lytton Strachey 1918 British English
979 The Worst Journey in the World Apsley Cherry-Garrard 1922 British English
1007 The Death and Life of Great American Cities Jane Jacobs 1961 American English
1038 Cosmos Carl Sagan 1980 American English
1052 Treatise on Radioactivity Marie Curie 1910 French French
1244 The Travels of Marco Polo Marco Polo 1300 Italian Old french
1257 Lives of the Caesars Suetonius 121 Roman Latin
1345 The Naked Ape Desmond Morris 1967 British English
1392 Evicted Matthew Desmond 2016 American English
1406 The Life of Charlotte Brontë Elizabeth Gaskell 1857 British English
1416 Rights of Man Thomas Paine 1791 British English
1434 R. E. Lee Douglas Southall Freeman 1934 American English
1474 Chaos James Gleick 1987 American English
1489 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches And Letters Abraham Lincoln 1907 American English
1542 The Devil In The White City Erik Larson 2003 American English
1575 Borstal Boy Brendan Behan 1958 Irish English
1627 Dora Bruder Patrick Modiano 1997 French French
1641 Disraeli Robert Blake 1966 British English
1763 Small Is Beautiful E. F. Schumacher 1973 British English
1817 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
1871 Brief Lives John Aubrey 1898 British English
1872 To the Finland Station Edmund Wilson 1940 American English
1893 The Soul of a New Machine Tracy Kidder 1981 American English
1901 The Power Broker Robert Caro 1974 American English
1974 The Emperor of All Maladies Siddhartha Mukherjee 2010 American English
1985 Black Elk Speaks John G. Neihardt 1932 American English
2003 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Harriet Jacobs 1861 American English
2022 The Color of Water James McBride 1995 American English
2031 Gedanken Und Erinnerungen Otto von Bismarck 1898 German German
2160 The Immense Journey Loren Eiseley 1957 American English
2198 The Last Lion William Manchester 1983 American English
2205 The Gate of Heavenly Peace Jonathan Spence 1981 American English
2222 The Theory And Practice Of Hell Eugen Kogon 1950 German German
2338 Master of the Senate Robert Caro 2002 American English
2390 The Face of Battle John Keegan 1976 British English
2396 The Drowned and the Saved Primo Levi 1986 Italian Italian
2417 The Age of Jackson Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr 1945 American English
2422 Galileo Bertolt Brecht 1938 German German
2479 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich William L. Shirer 1960 American English
2478 Artemisia Anna Banti 1947 Italian Italian
2484 The Good War Studs Terkel 1984 American English
2498 The South Pole Roald Amundsen 1912 Norwegian Norwegian
2505 Memoirs of Louis XIV Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon (duc de) 1740 French French
2522 The Passage Of Power Robert Caro 2012 American English
2527 Life of Christ Giovanni Papini 1921 Italian Italian
2610 What It Takes Richard Ben Cramer 1992 American English
2673 Microbe Hunters Paul de Kruif 1926 American English
2710 Alan Turing Andrew Hodges 1983 British English
2751 Out Of Africa Karen Blixen 1937 Danish Danish
2810 The Agony and the Ecstasy Irving Stone 1961 American English
2887 John Keats Walter Jackson Bate 1963 American English
2898 Moneyball Michael M. Lewis 2003 American English
2960 Jefferson and His Time Dumas Malone 1948 American English
2991 Frederick Douglass David W. Blight 2018 American English
3074 Patrimony Philip Roth 1991 American English
3084 Diane Arbus Marvin Israel, Doon Arbus 1972 American English
3113 The Life of Andrew Jackson Marquis James 1937 American English
3140 Great Heart James West Davidson, John Rugge 1988 American English
3171 The Tipping Point Malcolm Gladwell 2000 American English
3175 My Early Life Winston Churchill 1930 British English
3186 The Quest For Corvo A. J. A. Symons 1934 British English
3194 The Best And The Brightest David Halberstam 1972 American English
3222 Ecce Homo Friedrich Nietzsche 1908 German German
3235 When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi 2016 American English
3242 The Great Bridge David McCullough 1972 American English
3248 Memoirs of Cardinal De Retz Cardinal de Retz 1717 French French
3249 A Distant Mirror Barbara Wertheim Tuchman 1978 American English
3311 Growing Up Russell Baker 1982 American English
3391 Napoleon Emil Ludwig 1926 German German
3399 Portrait Of A Marriage Nigel Nicolson 1973 British English
3455 Profiles in Courage John F. Kennedy 1956 American English
3475 The Campaign of the Marne Sewell Tyng 1927 American English
3521 Balzac Stefan Zweig 1946 Austrian German
3524 Strange Defeat Marc Bloch 1946 French French
3530 Behemoth Franz Neumann 1942 German English
3547 Samuel Johnson Walter Jackson Bate 1977 American English
3556 The Black Jacobins C. L. R. James 1938 British English
3604 Limonov Emmanuel Carrère 2011 French French
3617 The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe 1979 American English
3637 The Battle with the Slum Jacob A. Riis 1902 Danish English
3637 Memoirs Of A Revolutionist Vera Figner 1920 Russian Russian
3637 The Memoirs Of Princess Dashkova Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova 1840 Russian Russian
3637 Van Loon's Lives Hendrik Willem van Loon 1942 Dutch English
3637 Child Of The Revolution Wolfgang Leonhard 1955 German German
3637 Out Of My Life And Thought Albert Schweitzer 1931 German German
3637 How I Found Livingstone Henry M. Stanley 1871 British English
3807 Rousseau and Revolution Will Durant, Ariel Durant 1967 American English
3833 Повесть о жизни Konstantin Paustovsky 1956 Russian Russian
3919 Staying Power Peter Fryer 1984 British English
3942 A Fire on the Moon Norman Mailer 1970 American English
3952 The Memoirs Of General Makriyannis Makriyannis 1907 Greek Greek
4060 Serengeti Shall Not Die Bernhard Grzimek 1959 German German
4066 Lives Other Than My Own Emmanuel Carrère 2009 French French
4071 Private Renaissance Maria Bellonci 1985 Italian Italian
4075 Seabiscuit Laura Hillenbrand 2001 American English
4078 The Life Of Jesus Ernest Renan 1863 French French
4157 We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families Philip Gourevitch 1998 American English
4158 China To Me Emily Hahn 1944 American English
4167 The History of the Standard Oil Company Ida Tarbell 1904 American English
4291 Conversations With Igor Stravinsky Robert Craft 1959 American English
4381 How To End A Story Helen Garner 2021 Australian English
4388 James Joyce Richard Ellmann 1959 American English
4416 A Bright Shining Lie Neil Sheehan 1988 American English
4419 Memoirs Of The Author Of A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman William Godwin 1798 British English