Finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Awards
Named one of the ten best books of 2023 by the Washington Post Chicago Tribune Time
A New York Times bestseller and notable 2023 A Barack Obama favorite of 2023
One of the New Yorker's essential reads of the best books of 2023 by the Christian Science MonitorOne of the Air Mail Top Twelve Books of 2023
A Washington Post and National Indie Bestseller One of Publishers Weekly's Best Nonfiction Books of 2023 One of the Top Ten Books Smithsonian Magazine's best of 2023
“Tough, penetrating, moving and easy to read. . .Eig's book is worthy of its subject. —Dwight Garner, The New York Times (Editors' Choice)
“[King is] imbued with the narrative energy of a horror movie. . . The most riveting story of King's life in a generation.—Mark Whitaker, The Washington Post
"No book could be more timely than Jonathan Eig's majestic and radical New King." . . Eig has created the most important book of 2023." —Will Bunch, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Hailed by The New York Times as "the perfect new biography," King combines revealing new research with accessible storytelling that brings an MLK to our times.Vividly written and thoroughly researched, Jonathan Eig's King: A Life is the first major biography in decades of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. - and is the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revealing new portrait of the missionary and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate look at the courageous and often emotionally troubled man. emotions, people who demand peaceful protests for their movement but are rarely at peace with themselves - even. It sheds light on the King family's origins as well as MLK's complicated relationships with his wife, father, and fellow activists. King reveals a minister grappling with human weaknesses and dark moods, a citizen hunted by his government, and a man determined to fight for justice even when it is a fight to the death.As he follows MLK from the classroom to the pulpit through the streets of Birmingham, Selma and Memphis, Eig dramatically recreates the journey of a man who reshaped race relations in America and became a our only founding father in modern times, and the country's most mourned martyr.
In this landmark biography, Eig gives us an MLK for our time: a profound thinker, a brilliant strategist and a committed radical who led directed one of the greatest movements in history and his demands for racial and economic justice remain as urgent today as they were during his lifetime.
