Personal History, by Katharine Graham

Posted May 25, 2021

Winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Biography

Graham’s book is populated with a cast of fascinating characters, from 50 years of presidents (and their wives) to Steichen, Brancusi, Felix Frankfurter, Warren Buffett (her great advisor and protector), Robert McNamara, George Schultz (her regular tennis partner), and, of course, the great names from the Post: Woodward, Bernstein, and Graham’s editor partner, Ben Bradlee. She writes of them and of the most dramatic moments of her stewardship of the Post (including the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and the pressmen’s strike) with acuity, humor, and good judgment. Her book is about learning by doing, about growing and growing up, about Washington, and about a woman liberated by both circumstance and her own great strengths.