Read The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Mandela's autobiography from the Transkei to Robben Island to the presidency.

Michelle Obama from the South Side of Chicago to the White House.

Solzhenitsyn's literary investigation of the camps from 227 witnesses; the abridged edition is enough.

John Lewis's civil rights years, from Nashville lunch counters to Selma, in three books.

Three daughters of China: a warlord's concubine, a communist official and the author, through Mao's century.

The First Lady and delegate, from Hyde Park to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes to his son about being Black in America; a letter in the tradition of Baldwin.

Margaret Thatcher in old age, remembering the rise; Streep won her third Oscar for it.