Read Any Biographies Lately? Part 2

This is a very selective list from my very selective memory. I list them in no particular order.

William Manchester, The Last Lion This is a two-volume bio of Winston Churchill which ends with him becoming prime minister. The proposed third volume was never published. Manchester is a spell binding author. In order to show how Churchill was a product of the age in which he was raised, the first 100 pages of the first volume is an overview of Victorian England, in which the phenomenal ministry of Charles Spurgeon is referenced. Those first 100 pages are worth the read. For a long time I awaited the publication of the third volume. Eventually, I wrote to Mr. Manchester asking for insight into when we might be able to read the volume. I received a gracious, handwritten note from Mr. Manchester’s personal secretary informing me that he had had a stroke and would not be finishing the work. That made me very sad.

William Manchester, American Caesar This bio of Douglas MacArthur is another Manchester treasure. It would be interesting for me to revisit this one after finishing my read of Truman since paths of these two men, shall we say, clashed. MacArthur is an interesting study in leadership. Perhaps this is why this book shows up on the lists of several prominent Christian leaders in a list at the back of Kent Hughes’ Disciplines of a Godly Man.

David McCullough, John Adams I’ve already said enough about this one. Rarely do I stay up late at night just to read a book. This one fell into that category.

Andrew Bonar, The Memoirs and Remains of Robert Murray McCheyne Perhaps McCheyne is not known to you and perhaps the title puts you off. (I mean, what are ‘remains’ anyway? Are there pieces of bone and hair in a baggie in the back?) However, McCheyne, a Scottish pastor, was a man, like Jim Eliot, whose spiritual insight matured early and whose life ended early, but whose impact lasted far beyond his years. He was a man in love with his Savior.

James W. Alexander, Archibald Alexander I’m a pastor, so I might be drawn inordinately to books about pastors. Archibald Alexander was not only a pastor, but in 1812 he was installed as the founding professor of Princeton Seminary. I found this bio very encouraging as a pastor and as a father. It was written by his son, who himself became a professor at Princeton. If you are familiar with another Princeton professor, the son of Charles Hodge, by the name of A. A. Hodge, three guesses what the ‘A. A.’ stands for.

George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards I am a fan of both this book and the one by Ian Murray of the same title. I was reading the Murray bio when my now 17 year old daughter was born. If you read either bio you will learn why we gave her the name ‘Jerusha’. I prefer the Marsden bio because it’s newer and because he does expose Edwards’ humanness in a way that makes him seem far more rounded.

James Robertson, Stonewall Jackson I’ve read three biographies of Jackson. All three treat Jackson with great respect and not disdain. He was a curious and in some ways puzzling man with sufficient idiosyncrasies to label him an odd genius. All that, together with his obvious piety, make him a man worth knowing.

Arnold A. Dallimore, George Whitefield A two volume work of massive scope of a man whose life impacted Christianity in England and on the American continent. He was a friend of John and Charles Wesley and of Benjamin Franklin. He was passionate about his Calvinism and his evangelism, a combination that is far more common than critics imagine. The amazing thing here is that at the end of volume one, Whitefield is only 25 years old. Wow.

Ian Murray, Martyn Lloyd-Jones I am told that in the 60s there were two churches in London to which students studying there would flock, John Stott’s All Souls and D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones Westminster Chapel. The two men differed, but both had huge and influential ministries. I’d read a bio of either. This two-volume work was written by a man very close to Lloyd-Jones, and so probably lacks the critical distance one might want to see in a biography. But I don’t care. He was an amazing man with an amazing ministry.

Robert Coram, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War An intern at our church was an Air Force guy who put me onto this book about John Boyd, an Air Force fighter pilot who rethought how war was to be fought. His ideas were rejected by the Air Force and embraced by the Marine Corps, and continue to be the subject of heated debate. The book is fascinating on that score, and as a study of leadership. The author is a devotee of Boyd, and so is perhaps imbalanced because of that. Still fascinating.

And finally, one that I would like to read, is this:

Donald Carson, Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor [Okay, I haven’t read this one yet, but I love the title and hope to read it soon, though I suspect this guy was not as ordinary as the title suggests.]

So, what are your favorites?