This compact and informative book offers an insightful overview of the history of biography. Typically, biography is thought of as being written, but in today's world, biography would include broadcasting: radio, film, and even the Internet. Hamilton (fellow, McCormack Graduate Sch. of Policy Studies, Univ. of Massachusetts, Boston; JFK: Restless Youth ) provides wide-ranging examples of biography in many forms, e.g., graphic arts, documentaries, and blogging. He investigates the chronicles of Suetonius and Tactius; the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and their depictions of Jesus; and Shakespeare's historical plays of kings and queens. He also draws scholarly conclusions from works by such writers as James Boswell and from Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians , with its mockery of four famous personages. In time, public and private reputations were challenged in biography, hypocrisy exposed, character and motives analyzed, and sexuality in all of its manifestations revealed. Biographers continued with inquiry and research, biopics came into being, and the multiplicity of biographical outlets was everywhere. Hamilton has given readers a thought-provoking look at biography in its various forms; a fascinating and handy reference book for anyone wishing to know more about the history and art of biography.
The story of life stories, from cave paintings and Gilgamesh to Michael Holroyd and James Frey. Hamilton may be the best friend biography has ever had. A skilled laborer in the life-story vineyard (Bill Clinton, 2003, etc.), he is also a fierce advocate for the importance of the genre-with some axes to grind. He wonders why the University of Hawaii at Manoa is the only one in the world with a department devoted to the study of biography. He rails against the OED, which he claims has insisted on limiting the definition of biography to written accounts only. Hamilton's much broader category includes portraits, sculpture, painting, plays, films, TV shows, comic books and much of popular culture. Although he does pause periodically to discuss unconventional forms (Shakespeare's dramatic studies of kings, for example), he focuses primarily on traditional biographies. Hamilton believes biography serves significant cultural functions. It is a way we learn about the past and (in the West at least) celebrate the primacy of the individual. His text hopscotches through history, staying put now and then to discuss great moments in biography and autobiography: the Gospels, St. Augustine, Plutarch, Raleigh, Rousseau, Boswell, Freud, Strachey and Woolf, who wrote Orlando because she decided that "if print biography could not batter down the doors of English decorum . . . it would have to mask itself as fiction." Hamilton declares Citizen Kane the most powerful of all biographies, even though fictionalized. He looks hard at forces that oppose the biographer-religion, tradition, prudishness, libel laws, totalitarianism-and casts particular opprobrium on copyright laws that keep permission to publish inthe hands of a subject's surviving relatives. (He does not mention his own struggles with the Kennedys after the 1992 publication of JFK: Reckless Youth.) The author believes that democracy has been the propellant for biography's rocket-like rise in the last half-century . . . and for biographers' newfound freedom to write about their subjects' sex lives. Many illuminating excerpts illustrate the text. A vast subject confined in a small but well-illuminated room.
In this intelligent exploration of his own literary field (he is the biographer of Field-Marshall Montgomery and Bill Clinton), Nigel Hamilton demonstrates that the modern understanding of biography as a worthy, reasonably well-secured, if sometimes contentious 'life' has never been absolute...[A] fascinating and timely account.
[An] inviting book. In uncomplicated language, Hamilton uses well-chosen examples to whisk the reader through biographical expression in the ancient world, medieval hagiography and the development of life-writing from the subversive texts of the Renaissance to the whitewashed "pseudobiographies" of the nineteenth century...This engaging book indisputably demonstrates the intricate history of his field, and will prompt its readers to read "life-writing" both with more understanding and with greater pleasure.
Times Literary Supplement - Lucy Carlyle
Who would imagine Nigel Hamilton's compact, erudite book about the history and practice of biography—called Biography: A Brief History —could be so wide-ranging and provocative? From prehistoric cave drawings (the animals are fully drawn while the hunters are stick figures) to today's films (the author himself won an award for a documentary based on his biography of Field Marshal Montgomery), Mr. Hamilton moves briskly through the centuries, highlighting how the depiction and recording of individual lives has changed from early oral sagas and cuneiform writing to Internet blogs. In essence, the author provides a short course on past societies viewed through their individuals, plus insights into the nature of individuality at certain periods in human history...Mr. Hamilton, a distinguished and prolific writer who has taught biography on both sides of the Atlantic, has distilled enormous wisdom into his remarkable little book. Read it and enjoy.
Washington Times - John M. and Priscilla S. Taylor
[A] continually fascinating history...Hamilton‘s learned, passionate approach is sufficient to grant biography all the respect it needs...His book is a celebration of the quite respectable status of the genre.
Bloomsbury Review - William T. Hamilton
Nigel Hamilton tells the story of life writing in the West—from the first appearance of human figures in cave paintings to the latest biopic or blog—displaying throughout his longstanding love and advocacy for biography in all its many familiar and unfamiliar forms. This lively, emphatic history is what many biography enthusiasts have been waiting for.
What a joy it was to read Nigel Hamilton's erudite Biography: A Brief History . As a practitioner of the art, I found his analysis on the merits of biography profound. Highly recommended!
In this precise, massively informative and scrupulously researched new book, Hamilton turns his gaze from the lives of others to that of his own art, life-writing itself...[A] lovingly crafted life of life-writing from its birth on the cave walls of prehistoric man through to the postmodern electro-mayhem of blogging...Hamilton has written a book that is insistently readable.
Times Higher Education Supplement - Tony Howe
As artful as it is provocative, [Hamilton's] book is itself a revealing exercise in life writing.
Boston Globe - Amanda Heller
Supported and explicated by lively studies like this one, biography may finally get the respect it deserves.
The breadth of Hamilton’s approach is evident also in one of the most attractive features of the book: its inclusion of short extracts from pivotal biographical works. There are passages here from some of the authors one would expect, such as Benvenuto Cellini and James Baldwin. But here, too, there are surprises, such as The Epic of Gilgamesh an extract from a diary of the aide-de-camp of General Patton, describing his arrival at a concentration camp and several lines from Monty Python’s Life of Brian . This book offers not just a history of biography, but also a powerful defence of it.
Australian Book Review - Barbara Caine
[Hamilton's] witty, readable account embraces the scholarly and the salacious, integrating them into a seamlessly coherent account, beginning with tales recorded in cuneiform on clay tablets in Ancient Sumer, and culminating in today's film and television 'biopics.'
Nigel Hamilton has written a delightful history of the fine art of biography through the ages. His insightful and provocative book reminds us that biography is the most tantalizing of historical narratives—and one uniquely suited to understanding the human condition.
[Hamilton] has produced a rich and provocative meditation on the history of biography.
Throughout Hamilton is a safe pair of hands, choosing excellent examples on the whole to make excellent points about the form, an inspired advocate of biography and clearly right on top of his brief...Hamilton is a superb guide...It is a book likely to appeal to many different readers—from experts on life-writing and literature and history to the general reader.
Library Review - Stuart Hannabuss
This interesting overview would make a suitable text for a course called “Biography 101: the History of the Genre”...[ Biography: A Brief History ] is a history of biographical writing from the cave drawings of Palaeolithic men and women to American Splendor , the remarkable film about comic strip novelist Harvey Pekar...All the important biographers and biographies are investigated including Shakespeare’s use of Holinshed’s Chronicles, the relationship between Boswell and Johnson and the writings of the great Lytton Strachey.
Entertaining history...There is much to glean from this brisk examination of our love affair with individuality.
Financial Times - Craig Taylor
From the stick figures of cave paintings to contemporary comic strips, Nigel Hamilton traces the history of biography, briskly and with insight...Brief but admirably readable and thoughtful.
Hamilton, biographer of JFK and Bill Clinton, is a knowledgeable and personable guide to a craft that is thousands of years old. His expansive definition of biography encompasses cave paintings, oil paintings, television documentaries, and Internet content in addition to books, a perspective that leads to numerous surprises while supporting his contention that biography should be granted the status of a scholarly discipline...[A] fascinating history.
Booklist - Steve Weinberg
Who would imagine Nigel Hamilton's compact, erudite book about the history and practice of biography--called Biography: A Brief History --could be so wide-ranging and provocative? From prehistoric cave drawings (the animals are fully drawn while the hunters are stick figures) to today's films (the author himself won an award for a documentary based on his biography of Field Marshal Montgomery), Mr. Hamilton moves briskly through the centuries, highlighting how the depiction and recording of individual lives has changed from early oral sagas and cuneiform writing to Internet blogs. In essence, the author provides a short course on past societies viewed through their individuals, plus insights into the nature of individuality at certain periods in human history...Mr. Hamilton, a distinguished and prolific writer who has taught biography on both sides of the Atlantic, has distilled enormous wisdom into his remarkable little book. Read it and enjoy.
Washington Times - John M. And Priscilla S. Taylor
Throughout Hamilton is a safe pair of hands, choosing excellent examples on the whole to make excellent points about the form, an inspired advocate of biography and clearly right on top of his brief...Hamilton is a superb guide...It is a book likely to appeal to many different readers—from experts on life-writing and literature and history to the general reader.
[A] continually fascinating history...Hamilton‘s learned, passionate approach is sufficient to grant biography all the respect it needs...His book is a celebration of the quite respectable status of the genre.
The breadth of Hamilton’s approach is evident also in one of the most attractive features of the book: its inclusion of short extracts from pivotal biographical works. There are passages here from some of the authors one would expect, such as Benvenuto Cellini and James Baldwin. But here, too, there are surprises, such as The Epic of Gilgamesh an extract from a diary of the aide-de-camp of General Patton, describing his arrival at a concentration camp and several lines from Monty Python’s Life of Brian . This book offers not just a history of biography, but also a powerful defence of it.
Supported and explicated by lively studies like this one, biography may finally get the respect it deserves.
[An] inviting book. In uncomplicated language, Hamilton uses well-chosen examples to whisk the reader through biographical expression in the ancient world, medieval hagiography and the development of life-writing from the subversive texts of the Renaissance to the whitewashed "pseudobiographies" of the nineteenth century...This engaging book indisputably demonstrates the intricate history of his field, and will prompt its readers to read "life-writing" both with more understanding and with greater pleasure.
Times Literary Supplement
From the stick figures of cave paintings to contemporary comic strips, Nigel Hamilton traces the history of biography, briskly and with insight...Brief but admirably readable and thoughtful.
In this precise, massively informative and scrupulously researched new book, Hamilton turns his gaze from the lives of others to that of his own art, life-writing itself...[A] lovingly crafted life of life-writing from its birth on the cave walls of prehistoric man through to the postmodern electro-mayhem of blogging...Hamilton has written a book that is insistently readable.
Times Higher Education Supplement
[Hamilton's] witty, readable account embraces the scholarly and the salacious, integrating them into a seamlessly coherent account, beginning with tales recorded in cuneiform on clay tablets in Ancient Sumer, and culminating in today's film and television 'biopics.'
In this intelligent exploration of his own literary field (he is the biographer of Field-Marshall Montgomery and Bill Clinton), Nigel Hamilton demonstrates that the modern understanding of biography as a worthy, reasonably well-secured, if sometimes contentious 'life' has never been absolute...[A] fascinating and timely account.
Entertaining history...There is much to glean from this brisk examination of our love affair with individuality.
As artful as it is provocative, [Hamilton's] book is itself a revealing exercise in life writing.
[Hamilton] has produced a rich and provocative meditation on the history of biography.
New York Times Book Review
Hamilton, biographer of JFK and Bill Clinton, is a knowledgeable and personable guide to a craft that is thousands of years old. His expansive definition of biography encompasses cave paintings, oil paintings, television documentaries, and Internet content in addition to books, a perspective that leads to numerous surprises while supporting his contention that biography should be granted the status of a scholarly discipline...[A] fascinating history.
Who would imagine Nigel Hamilton's compact, erudite book about the history and practice of biography—called Biography: A Brief History —could be so wide-ranging and provocative? From prehistoric cave drawings (the animals are fully drawn while the hunters are stick figures) to today's films (the author himself won an award for a documentary based on his biography of Field Marshal Montgomery), Mr. Hamilton moves briskly through the centuries, highlighting how the depiction and recording of individual lives has changed from early oral sagas and cuneiform writing to Internet blogs. In essence, the author provides a short course on past societies viewed through their individuals, plus insights into the nature of individuality at certain periods in human history...Mr. Hamilton, a distinguished and prolific writer who has taught biography on both sides of the Atlantic, has distilled enormous wisdom into his remarkable little book. Read it and enjoy.
