King: A Life

"This new biography of Martin Luther King Jr. fits Barack Obama's interest in American history and the Civil Rights Movement, aligning with his own reflections on leadership and social change."

"King: A Life is a new biography of Martin Luther King, Jr.—billed as the “definitive” biography—by the author of a bestselling 2018 biography of Muhammed Ali. King grew of that previous work, as many of his sources knew both men, says Eig; this new book was written with an intention of creating a true intimacy with his subject. “A biography can make you feel like you’re getting to know the person,” he explained in an interview . “I wanted to write a book that would make you cry at the end when you lose this person that you loved.” Despite extensive previous coverage and several previous biographies, Eig uncovered unseen archive material and revelations that Alex Haley (the journalist who co-wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X ) fabricated quotes in a high profile interview."

"With new evidence, Eig enriches our understanding of King and rescues the civil rights leader from what he describes as “the gray mist of hagiography.” He traces the arc of “Little Mike,” son of a Georgia sharecropper, to national prominence as an eloquent advocate for Black rights, as well as a crusader against the Vietnam War and poverty, all the way to Memphis and the Lorraine Motel balcony. Building on more than 200 interviews and recently released FBI files, Eig made national news by debunking a famous quotation about Malcolm X attributed to King, tracks fissures in the civil rights movement, and reveals King’s womanizing. Since the National Book Critics Circle announced its finalists, King: A Life was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. This year two prizes were conferred, and the other equally brilliant biography was Ilyon Woo’s Master Slave Husband Wife , which reconstructs an enslaved couple’s daring, arduous escape from Georgia in 1848 to freedom. Widely praised as a biographer, Jon Eig has written about iconic athletes, like baseball players Lou Gehrig ( Luckiest Man ) and Jackie Robinson ( Opening Day ), and more recently Muhammad Ali ( Ali: A Life ) . He also wrote The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution , which has been adapted to the stage. “This set of books, each in its distinctive way, contributed to a substantial revision of history” Even with his track record of prodigiously researched biographies of 20th-century icons, we wondered whether Eig’s biography of King would substantially enrich our understanding of the civil rights leader, particularly after such robust Pulitzer Prize winners as David Garrow’s Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Biography, 1987) and Taylor Branch’s Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963 (History, 1989). Considering Eig’s King alongside the works of Garrow and Branch reveals that cradle-to-grave biographies are more than paint-by-number books. Within the constraints of that canvas, the shapes and hues can be wildly different. Considering these books together was an object lesson not only in interpretation but also in approach and reveals that new evidence is to be discovered and interpreted."

"Since last year, I’ve been keeping a closer eye on biographies , a genre I enjoy. When you see the world through someone’s eyes, it’s hard not to sympathize with them. I was excited to see a new biography of Martin Luther King Jr. by American journalist and biographer Jonathan Eig. Like many foreigners who have spent time in the US, I was aware who Martin Luther King Jr. was and his importance, but not the details nor why he shared a name with a 16th-century German monk (who my history professors at Oxford seemed to think important). This biography is highly readable and, according to the introduction, draws on new information, particularly on Mike’s father. Other biographies out these past three months include Ramesses the Great by Toby Wilkinson , the Cambridge Egyptologist, as well as an account of the life of Sultan Suleyman of the Ottoman Empire (also often called ‘the Great’ in Western languages) by Turkish historian Kaya Şahin. Both rulers spent a lot of time and energy building their reputations, which may be why we’re reading about them three millennia and five centuries later, respectively. Messalina, the wife of the Roman emperor Claudius, was not so lucky, going down in the history books as a debauched adulteress. In Messalina: A Story of Empire, Slander and Adultery , PhD student Honor Cargill-Martin makes a valiant attempt to restore her reputation, though it’s hard going as little is known about her, beyond that she was a young (perhaps very young) bride."

"Only two U.S. holidays celebrate the birthdays of prominent Americans: Washington’s Birthday (Presidents Day) and Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. King has been gone for over 50 years, and the author of this book, Jonathan Eig, writes, “in hallowing King we have hollowed him.” Little more than his call to judge people not “by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” is now taught in schools. Eig remedies this in his meticulously researched and beautifully written book, bringing back to life King the man, his strengths and his weaknesses, and King the organizer, whose political evolution leads him to conclude that only through radical change will America be able to offer equality and justice for all, an often overlooked aspect of the man whose birthday we celebrate every January."