Memoir

An American Life Ronald Reagan's 1990 autobiography, from his Illinois boyhood to Hollywood, the governorship and the presidency. Hillbilly Elegy J. D. Vance's 2016 memoir of growing up in a struggling Ohio and Kentucky Appalachian family, and of the culture of the white working class. My Early Life Winston Churchill's 1930 memoir of his boyhood, schooling, army service and escape in the Boer War, a classic of English prose. My Grandfather's Son Justice Clarence Thomas's 2007 memoir of his rise from Pin Point, Georgia, to the Supreme Court, and of his confirmation battle. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Frederick Douglass's 1845 autobiography of his enslavement and escape, a landmark of American literature and an indictment of slavery. Radical Son David Horowitz's 1997 memoir of his path from red-diaper childhood and the New Left to conservatism, and the lessons he drew. Up from Slavery Booker T. Washington's 1901 autobiography, which tells of his rise from slavery to found Tuskegee Institute and preaches self-help and education. Witness Whittaker Chambers's 1952 memoir of his communist underground work, his break with the party, and the Alger Hiss case, a landmark of American conservatism.