{"product_id":"2940013836020","title":"AMERICAN MEN OF ACTION","description":"CONTENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI.--A TALK ABOUT BIOGRAPHY\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eII.--THE BEGINNERS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e        Summary to Chapter II\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIII.--WASHINGTON TO LINCOLN\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e        Summary to Chapter III\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIV--LINCOLN AND HIS SUCCESSORS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e        Summary to Chapter IV\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eV--STATESMEN\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e        Summary to Chapter V\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVI.--PIONEERS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e        Summary to Chapter VI\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVII.--GREAT SOLDIERS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e        Summary to Chapter VII\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eVIII.--GREAT SAILORS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e        Summary to Chapter VIII\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eINDEX\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e       *       *       *       *       *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWashington    _Frontispiece_\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eColumbus\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJefferson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJackson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLincoln\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCleveland\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFranklin\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWebster\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoone\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGrant\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLee\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDewey\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e       *       *       *       *       *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAMERICAN MEN OF ACTION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e       *       *       *       *       *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA TALK ABOUT BIOGRAPHY\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo doubt most of you think biography dull reading. You would much rather\u003cbr\u003esit down with a good story. But have you ever thought what a story is?\u003cbr\u003eIt is nothing but a bit of make-believe biography.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet us see, in the first place, just what biography means. It is formed\u003cbr\u003efrom two Greek words, \"bios,\" meaning life, and \"graphein,\" meaning to\u003cbr\u003ewrite: life-writing. In other words, a biography is the story of the\u003cbr\u003elife of some individual. Now what the novelist does is to write the\u003cbr\u003ebiographies of the people of his story; not usually from the cradle to\u003cbr\u003ethe grave, but for that crucial period of their careers which marked\u003cbr\u003esome great success or failure; and he tries to make them so life-like\u003cbr\u003eand natural that we will half-believe they are real people, and that the\u003cbr\u003ethings he tells about really happened. Sometimes, to accomplish this, he\u003cbr\u003eeven takes the place of one of his own characters, and tells the story\u003cbr\u003ein the first person, as Dickens does in \"David Copperfield.\" That is\u003cbr\u003ecalled autobiography, which is merely a third Greek word, \"autos,\"\u003cbr\u003emeaning self, added to the others. An automobile, for instance, is a\u003cbr\u003eself-moving vehicle. So autobiography is the biography of oneself. The\u003cbr\u003egreat aim of the novelist is, by any means within his power, to make his\u003cbr\u003etale seem true, and the truer it is--the truer to human nature and the\u003cbr\u003efacts of life--the greater is his triumph.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow why is it that everyone likes to read these make-believe\u003cbr\u003ebiographies? Because we are all interested in what other people are\u003cbr\u003edoing and thinking, and because a good story tells in an entertaining\u003cbr\u003eway about life-like people, into whom the story-teller has breathed\u003cbr\u003esomething of his own personality. Then how does it come that so few of\u003cbr\u003eus care to read the biographies of real people, which ought to be all\u003cbr\u003ethe more interesting because they are true instead of make-believe?\u003cbr\u003eWell, in the first place, because most of us have never tried to read\u003cbr\u003ebiography in the right way, and so think it tiresome and uninteresting.\u003cbr\u003eHaven't you, more than once, made up your mind that you wouldn't like a\u003cbr\u003ething, just from the look of it, without ever having tasted it? You know\u003cbr\u003ethe old proverb, \"One man's food is another man's poison.\" It isn't a\u003cbr\u003etrue proverb--indeed, few proverbs are true--because we are all built\u003cbr\u003ealike, and no man's food will poison any other man; although the other\u003cbr\u003eman may think so, and may really show all the symptoms of poisoning,\u003cbr\u003ejust because he has made up his mind to.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMost of you approach biography in that way. You look through the book,\u003cbr\u003eand you see it isn't divided up into dialogue, as a story is, and there\u003cbr\u003eare no illustrations, only pictures of crabbed-looking people, and so\u003cbr\u003eyou decide that you are not going to like it, and consequently you don't\u003cbr\u003elike it, no matter how likeable it is.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt isn't wholly your fault that you have acquired this feeling.\u003cbr\u003eStrangely enough, most biographies give no such impression of reality as\u003cbr\u003egood fiction does. John Ridd, for instance, is more alive for most of us\u003cbr\u003ethan Thomas Jefferson--the one is a flesh-and-blood personality, while\u003cbr\u003ethe other is merely a name. This is because the average biographer\u003cbr\u003eapparently does not comprehend that his first duty is to make his\u003cbr\u003esubject seem alive, or lacks the art to do it; and so produces merely a\u003cbr\u003elay-figure, draped with the clothing of the period. And usually he\u003cbr\u003emisses the point and fails miserably because he concerns himself with\u003cbr\u003ethe mere doing of deeds, and not with that greatest of all things, the\u003cbr\u003edevelopment of character.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47177911828720,"sku":"2940013836020","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013836020_p0.jpg?v=1763595353","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013836020","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}