Biography & Autobiography / General

The Definitive Biography of the Velvet Revolution Leader Who Overthrew Communism and Created a Democratic Czechoslovakia

A biography of John P. Saylor, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who became a prominent conservationist in the three decades after World War II.

Kenneth Warren presents a compelling biography that chronicles the startling success of Charles Schwab’s business career, his leadership abilities, and his drive to advance steel-making technology and operations. Through extensive research and use of previously unpublished archival documentation, Warren offers a new perspective on the life of a monumental figure—a true visionary—in the industrial history of America.

Dick Thornburgh, former Governor of Pennsylvania and U.S. Attorney General under Presidents Reagan and Bush, reveals painful details of his personal life, including the 1960 automobile accident that claimed the life of his first wife and permanently disabled his infant son. He presents a frank analysis of the challenges of raising a family as a public figure, and tells the moving story of his personal and political crusade that culminated in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

A compelling account of the life of Pennsylvanian writer Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958). Through the examination of the tension between her seemingly contradictory domestic and professional identities, Jan Cohn illuminates precisely why Rinehart’s accomplishments are so remarkable.

In The Puzzle People, Dr. Thomas Starzl, a pioneer in the field of transplant surgery, has written a spellbinding and heart-wrenching autobiography.Throughout his career, he has aroused both worldwide admiration and controversy. His technical innovations and medical genius have revolutionized the field, but Starzl has not hesitated to address the moral and ethical issues raised by transplantation. In this book he clearly states his position on many hotly debated issues.

A detailed, carefully wrought business biography of Henry Clay Frick, one of the leading entrepreneurs in American heavy industry during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Kenneth Warren has provided not only insight into the life of Henry Clay Frick, but a major contribution to our understanding of the history of the basic industries, the shaping of society, locality, and region – and thereby of laying the foundations for the value systems and landscapes of present-day America.

Taylor explores aspects of himself that have affected his work. He delves into the creation of Aureole and From Sea to Shining Sea, from their initial inception to the ways in which specific dancers influenced the choreography, including such notables as Pina Bausch, Laura Dean, David Parsons, Twyla Tharp, Dan Wagoner, Senta Driver—all of whom went on to form their own companies—and others—Bettie de Jong, Nicholas Gunn, and Carolyn Adams—who remained as much a part of the Taylor style as the choreography itself.

Prodigal Son documents the life of award-winning dancer Edward Villella.

Neither the “rowdy-ball” ruffian nor the teetotal saint constructed of legend, Wagner is presented here in a complete portrait—one that offers a vivid impression of the era when baseball was America’s game and the nation was evolving into the world’s industrial leader.

Publicly available for the first time, Pittsburgh entrepreneur, judge, and banker Thomas Mellon’s autobiography includes maps and rarely seen photographs. The preface by his grandson Paul Mellon and the foreword by David McCullough, along with the introduction, notes, and afterword by University of Pittsburgh professor Mary Briscoe, provide a historical and social context.

The definitive biography of short story writer John O’Hara.

The first anthology to bring together a representative selection of Carnegie’s writings which show him as a shrewd businessman, celebrated philanthropist, champion of democracy, and eternal optimist. Carnegie’s first letter to the editor at the age of seventeen was the beginning of a lifelong attempt to satisfy an insatiable journalistic desire. Always voluble and candid, Carnegie was as active with his pen as with his tongue.

Although most of the selections were penned for an audience now long gone, today’s reader will be intrigued by the pertinence and timelessness of Carnegie’s hopes for world peace, his views on labor, and his concern for better race relations in America.

An oral history about the life of Steve Nelson,the immigrant teenage son of a Croatian miller, and later an American Communist Party organizer. Follows Nelson’s varied career, and his rise in the ranks of the Party. Tells the inside story of the workings of the Party, from a small group of Detroit autoworkers to the Party leaders in New York.

The first major study of Karl Kautsky, considered the most influential Marxian theoretician in the world, from 1895 to 1914. Outside of Friedrich Engels, Kautsky did more to popularize Marism than any other person. An entire generation of Marxists, including Lenin and Trotsky, learned the doctrine in large part from Kautsky.