Books in the Lives and Legacies series

A compact, lively biography of Henry Ford, the brilliant businessman and icon of American modernity whose towering ego and anti-Semitism complicate his legacy.

Written by a leading authority on colonial America, this compact biography captures in a remarkably small space one of the most protean lives of American history.

Known as the 'Great Dissenter,' Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr wrote some of the most eloquent opinions in the history of the United States Supreme Court. Holmes was responsible for some of the most important judicial opinions of the twentieth century. This biography offers readers a portrait of this singular individual.

A biography, exploring the life of Roger Williams: first champion for the separation of church and state, advocate for a Native American population abused by British colonists, cofounder of the Baptist Church, and founder of the state of Rhode Island.

Walt Whitman is one of the first volumes in the Lives and Legacies series on notable figures inspired by the Very Short Introductions series. Award winning author, David Reynolds, offers a book that comcisely places this influencial American poet in his historical contexts.

Quarrelsome and quirky, a disheveled recluse who ate little, slept less, and yet had an iron constitution, Isaac Newton rose from a virtually illiterate family to become one of the towering intellects of science. Now, in this fast-paced, colorful biography, Gale E. Christianson paints an engaging portrait of Newton and the times in which he lived.

The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the twentieth century's most famous poet and its most influential literary arbiter, TS Eliot has long been thought to be an obscure and difficult poet - forbiddingly learned, maddeningly enigmatic. This book presents an exploration of TS Eliot's work.

Mark Twain is one of the first volumes in the Lives and Legacies series on notable figures. Ziff considers Twain's career and his works in the context of the literary and social culture of his time and his own ambiguous attitude towards his fame as a humorist.

A compact biography and guide to one of the greatest English-language poets, T. S. Eliot sheds new light on the themes and events that shaped the life and work of the Nobel laureate.