What to Read During the Covid-19 Exile of 2020: Biographies of Great Men

The Covid-19 Exile might be a good chance to get in some serious reading.

The four books that follow are recommended biographies of men we all ought to know something about.  There are others I could mention to be sure (Genghis Khan, Stalin, Lenin, and Mao come to mind), but these are books I have read and which I can recommend as both important and interesting.

Winston Churchill was certainly not the greatest man who ever-lived, but he might well be the most interesting.  Churchill's life began in the days of Queen Victoria, and ended during Beatlemania.  Churchill took very seriously the threats posed by Hitler and Stalin, when others missed the obvious.  This is a page-turning biography of a truly fascinating man.

Andrew Roberts -- Churchill

To my mind, Napoleon Bonaparte is not a likeable man in any sense.  But Roberts' very well-written and thoroughly researched biography reminds us that the Corsican general was one of the world's greatest military minds and political organizers.  Napoleon's fingerprints are all over modern Europe.  Many feared he was the Antichrist.  This short man cast a very long shadow.  Roberts is a great biographer and tells Napoleon's story in a compelling way.

Roberts Napoleon

Despite my loathing of Hitler, my recommendation is that every thoughtful and intellectually engaged person ought to read this book.  Kershaw's biography (this is the one volume abridgement of a two-volume set) gives us a definitive look at the man, the culture which produced him, his political skill, and his unchecked treachery.  Kershaw identifies Hitler as an "unperson," and tells the story of how a man, who at other times and places would have been an absolute nobody, came to power in post World War One Germany and launched his own war which killed 70-85 million people.

The best way to prevent this from ever happening again, is to know something about Hitler's brand of fascism (national socialism).  This is the place to begin.

Kershaw: Hitler

If you were to name the five most influential people in world history, surely Alexander's name would be on that list.  By the age of 30 he had created an Empire which extended from Macedonia (Greece) all the way to India.  He never lost a battle and defeated the much larger Persian empire during a ten-year campaign in which his military genius was determinative.  Much about Alexander remains mysterious to us given the lack of written sources (especially his early death from a fever at age 32).  But we do know that the Hellenizing influence he set in motion through conquest, brought massive cultural changes which revolutionized life throughout his vast empire and for centuries to come.  Cartledge tells Alexander's story in a compelling an interesting way. 

Cartledge: Alexander the Great

Next up, biographies of great Americans . . .