American Lives: Readings from New Biographies

Raymond Arsenault’s Arthur Ashe: A Life is the first comprehensive, authoritative biography of American icon Arthur Ashe—the Jackie Robinson of men’s tennis. In chronicling the adventurous life of legendary CIA operative Edward Lansdale, Max Boot’s The Road Not Taken definitively reframes our understanding of the Vietnam War.The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created, from Jane Leavy, is the definitive biography of Babe Ruth—the man Roger Angell dubbed “the model for modern celebrity.” Christopher Bonanos’s Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous is the first comprehensive biography of photographer, “psychic,” and ultimate New Yorker, Arthur Fellig.