Australian lives are intricately enmeshed with the world, bound by ties of allegiance and affinity, intellect and imagination. In Transnational Ties: Australian Lives in the World, an eclectic mix of scholars—historians, literary critics, and museologists—trace the flow of people that helped shape Australia’s distinctive character and the flow of ideas that connected Australians to a global community of thought. It shows how biography, and the study of life stories, can contribute greatly to our understanding of such patterns of connection and explores how transnationalism can test biography’s limits as an intellectual, professional and commercial practice.

Revised Lives examines self-representation in U.S. culture from the American Revolution through the nineteenth century. Drawing on studies of the history of the book, Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, and ethnic and gender revisionism, this book focuses on the processes of national development, the self-construction of authorial personae, and the appropriation of the personae by interpretive communities. Special emphasis is given to Walt Whitman, but other figures are treated at length: P. T. Barnum, Edward Carpenter, Frederick Douglass, Benjamin Franklin, and Edgar Allan Poe.

Bill Bryson's concise biography of Shakespeare is brilliantly written, humorously insightful, and entirely delightful. The prose is a well-crafted and playful presentation of the dozen odd facts known about Shakespeare and many of the suppositions, inferences, and wild speculations about the man and his work. This Shakespeare primer can be easily understood by any high-school level reader and no prior knowledge about Shakespeare is required--Bryson even helpfully informs the reader that "William Shakespeare of Stratford was unquestionably" (p. 196) the author of Shakespeare's plays and poetry, a fact that is apparently not self-evident.

Bryson has written several books including the prize-winning A Short History of Nearly Everything. The book under review is provided as a volume in the "Eminent Lives" series of concise biographies by varying authors and as such conforms to an imposed restriction on length. With a candid honesty that permeates his offering, Bryson notes that the world didn't really need another Shakespeare biography but that the "Eminent Lives" series did. Bryson is straightforward in admitting that no groundbreaking research is presented, but rather the biography gathers the known facts, the supposed facts, and much pithy innuendo into a single engaging and accessible overview. Bryson's strength, then, lies not so much in his Shakespearean expertise but rather in his obvious ability to turn a phrase.

Dedicated to our Poet Otherwordly     I hope your sense of humour will be satisfied! - stovokor

Elected politicians and activists, trade unionists and spies, human rights campaigners and Nazi leaders, environmentalists and dictators, pioneers of women’s rights and civil servants—you’ll find them all in this indispensable guide to the key political figures of the 20th century. Over 2000 authoritative and up-to-date biographies, compiled by a team of international contributors and advisers, detail the lives and achievements of those men and women who have been instrumental in shaping political events and opinion in all parts of the world.