One of America's most versatile writers, author of bestselling
biographies such as Steve Jobs and Benjamin Franklin, has assembled
a gallery of portraits of (mostly) Americans that celebreate genius,
talent, and versatility, and traces his own education as a writer and
biographer.
In this collection of essays, the brilliant, acclaimed biographer Walter
Isaacson reflects on lessons to be learned from Benjamin Franklin,
Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail
Gorbachev, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, and other interesting
characters he has chronicled both as biographer and journalist. The
people he writes about have an awesome intelligence, but that is not the
secret to their success. They had qualities that were even more rare,
such as imagination and true curiousity.
Isaacson also reflects on how he became a writer, the lessons he learned
from various people he met, and the challenges for journalism in the
digital age.
He also offers loving tributes to his hometown of New Orleans, which
offers many of the ingredients for a creative culture, and to the
Louisiana novelist Walker Percy, who was an early mentor. In an
anecdotal and personal way, Isaacson describes the joys of writing and
the way that tales about the lives of fascinating people can enlighten
our own lives.