Biography has always been and continues to be a popular form of historical writing. "Bookshop shelves bulge with the lives of sport and film stars, politicians and the makers of great and amazing deeds," wrote Richard Broome.¹ Rarely a week goes by without a new biography - often of a political figure - appearing on the New York Times or other bestseller lists. Clearly, people enjoy reading life stories. This is quite understandable. While academic articles and monographs have become more arcane and less accessible to the general reader, a biography, as Stephen Oates has noted, "personalizes events, demonstrates that the individual does count - which is reassuring to people in our complex, technical age."² Biography has become popular entertainment. With the decline of the heroic novel, W. Jackson Bate explained, "Biography is stepping into the breach, portraying particular people and times the way the great novels of the past did."³

In part, it is this very popularity that has convinced historians and social scientists to steer clear of the genre, as authors and researchers. "Popularity" has become synonymous with "inferior" in the scholarly mind, despite the fact that all historians and many political scientists, to some degree, write biography. It is impossible to research, analyze, and write about any event or action without dealing with individual men and women. "This is the gift of history, to put a human face and individual mentalities into our representations of past eras," Broome commented, but he also explained that it was because of biography's "stress on great individuals and on the atypical, and the claim that historical biography is elitist, reductionist and simply too easily done"⁴ that this form of historical writing has remained in decline in recent decades. Whereas biography was once common fodder for young dissertation writers, graduate advisors now encourage their students to avoid such topics if they hope to gain tenure-track positions. The result is a paucity of good biographies of the leading political figures of the past half century. Certainly, we no longer accept Emerson's statement that "there is properly no history, only biography," but it is high time that the scholarly world - in the humanities and the social sciences - rediscover the immense value of political biographies.

Presidents, of course, do not lack for eager biographers. Scores of books are produced by historians, journalists, and other biographers, both professional and amateur. Some outstanding examples of recent presidential biography include David McCullough's Truman with its prodigious research and Alonzo Hamby's impressive Man of the People. Also influential have been Robert Caro's volumes on Lyndon Johnson, Stephen Ambrose on Nixon, and other presidential biographies by such established scholars as Robert Dallek and Joseph Ellis. Even the safe territory of presidential biography has come into some disrepute of late, as it too has taken a postmodern turn away from scholarly standards of objectivity and fidelity to fact. Nothing exemplifies this better than the recent flurry of press attention given to Edmund Morris' controversial biography of Ronald Reagan, Dutch. Whether the result of Morris' bizarre inventions in Dutch will be the further alienation of scholars from the genre or an eagerness to show that scholarly, reliable biographies are viable projects remains to be seen.

Even if presidents have received their due attention, however, biographers have virtually ignored other leading political figures of the past several decades, most notably members of Congress. For students of American government, politics, and public policy, this is indeed a tragedy. To date, 1,852 men and women have served in the U.S. Senate. We have good, scholarly biographies of only a small portion of that number, perhaps 20%. Over 11,000 individuals have served in the House of Representatives, and an even smaller percentage of them have received attention from biographers. Still, we need biographies to understand how government works, and particularly to understand how policy is made. Public policy is not created by governments or institutions, but by individuals and coalitions of individuals working together to reach a compromised solution to a defined problem. To appreciate the definition of a problem, you must know the person doing the defining.

While researching and writing a history of immigration policy of the 1960s, I realized that the policymakers of that era - Emanuel Celler, Philip Hart, and Sam Ervin to name a few - each approached the debate with their own unique memory of past immigration policies, particularly the national origins quota laws of the 1920s. To a considerable extent, it was that "policy memory," a constructed history made up of perceptions of failure or success, judgments of past motives, and evolving public opinion during the long implementation phase when consequences - intended and unintended - revealed themselves, that dictated policy initiatives in the 1960s. This policy memory was often more powerful than current testimony at hearings, new evidence presented in debate, or scholarly studies of past policies. I soon discovered that policy memory is always flawed, but the power of these constructed histories was impossible to ignore. To understand a policymaker's approach to immigration policy in 1965, therefore, I had to consider his experience with and memory of the earlier policy. Many of the best insights into understanding policy memory came from well-researched biographies.

As you can see by now, I am convinced that political biographies are useful tools for historians and political scientists. They offer us an understanding of the personal context in which policymakers make legislative decisions. At its best, a good biography will not only tell the story of a life, it will, as Barbara Tuchman explained, be a "vehicle for exhibiting an age,"⁵ which places that individual into broader historical context. Biographies also add a human dimension to studies of government that typically stress impersonal processes and institutional structure, allowing us to see how groups of individuals can craft such diverse solutions to a common problem. A well-written biography analyzes the impact of an individual upon politics and public policy and reassures even the most cynical among us that one individual can bring about change. Only through the study of individual experience can we appreciate the delicate balance a legislator must strike to build the coalitions needed to achieve policy success.

Looking at the career of a specific member of Congress can also provide a glimpse into that difficult task of balancing state and national issues, defining political allegiance, and building a national legacy in harmony with local, constituent needs. Equally important, political biographies explain the pitfalls of uniting conflicting interests to overcome obstacles, and illustrate the importance of congressional organizations and settings, such as party caucuses or closed sessions, which often seem remote and secretive. Rather than studying "congress" or "lawmakers", biographies relate the careers of the noble and the profane, the wise and the ignorant, the winners and the losers. They reveal the personalities of the people who shape our political world. Finally, political biographies provide scholars with a more complete knowledge of the institutional, procedural, and - less tangible - environmental differences between the two houses of Congress - the House and the Senate. This is a distinction too often lost on historians and political scientists alike.

If we agree that political biographies are useful to students of government and history, as discerning scholars we also need to consider the quality of the biographies we use. There are some distinctions that need to be drawn to appreciate the usefulness of political biography. Despite the recent controversy surrounding Dutch, there is a long-standing scholarly code among historical biographers. Anyone using biographies to inform their own work should approach the book with these standards in mind and develop a careful and discerning eye.

The "first thing that a biographer must be is a drudge," wrote Mark Schorer, and no doubt all good biographers would agree.⁶ This requires a creative approach to all available sources. Whereas some biographers, particularly journalists, tend to plumb the depths of secondary sources, and often rely upon their own firsthand experience and knowledge, historians writing biographies are required to delve into a wide variety of primary sources. The best biographer, regardless of training, will use all available sources. She will research archival paper collections of individual members, read letters and diaries, consult the official records of Congress at the National Archives, and search out oral history interviews compiled by the Library of Congress, presidential libraries, and the Senate Historical Office. In addition, she will conduct her own interviews with the family, friends, and colleagues of her subject. A good biographer will be completely familiar with congressional publications, published secondary sources, and will not hesitate to consult other scholars in the field. Only with a comprehensive approach to available sources can a biographer hope to write a thorough and honest book.

In biography, like all good history, no invention is allowed. The days of hagiography, when an author "need not be bound by the tyranny of fact," are gone.⁷ Today, our standards for biographical writing are more demanding. Books like Dutch may sell, but they are not useful for scholars exploring politics and policy. If you cannot rely upon the validity of the information, the book is worthless. Such criteria, of course, imply a strong sense of responsibility on the part of the author. "The historian is tied to evidence," noted Walter Phillips, "he must interpret the evidence and interpret it imaginatively. But he has to have something to begin with - a fact - and not a theory which he looks for facts to justify."⁸ Certainly, the writing of biography is a creative act, but as another biographer noted, "creative" does not mean "to invent".⁹

The story of any individual must be considered in larger context, and the biographer must have a thorough understanding of that context. In other words, the biographer needs to know his history. Without a proper understanding of the era, one life story loses its meaning. "This is what makes biography history," explained Walter Phillips, "setting the subject in the context of their times, without which they cannot be fully understood."¹⁰ To be useful in my work, life histories have to be linked to the larger history of government, politics, and policymaking of that era.

To illustrate the usefulness of political biography, let me draw upon a recent example - John Jacobs' 1995 biography of Congressman Phillip Burton of California, A Rage for Justice. I choose this book not because it is a flawless example of political biography, but because it effectively fulfills my criteria. It is nearly a textbook case of the usefulness of political biography. John Jacobs is a journalist by trade, but his biography of Phillip Burton is built upon an impressive research base, including a thorough familiarity with the Burton papers at the Bancroft Library, over 400 interviews that supplemented existing oral history interviews, and a comprehensive review of the relevant secondary literature. Despite the complexity and controversy of Burton's life and career, Jacobs remained true to his evidence. I found his analysis sound, even when I disagreed with his conclusions. Through personal experience and extensive research, Jacobs has a thorough knowledge of the era and events that are part and parcel of Burton's life and career.

For historians studying American politics and policy of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as political scientists seeking to understand today's political institutions and party development, this is required reading. Burton's legislative legacy is impressive, ranging from mine safety and assistance to black lung victims to a vast expansion of the national park system, but the real value of the book is not in cataloging achievements but in explaining the complicated, circuitous route Burton often took to gain such success. He had to form the most unlikely coalitions, many that seem impossible to us today. His use of party organizations, such as the Democratic Caucus and the Democratic Study Group, demonstrates how power can shift from a diverse group of individual members to a centralized party caucus or group that effectively dictates legislation. Burton's quest for the speakership - which he lost to Jim Wright by a single vote - is in itself a case study of political maneuvering and strategy that ultimately becomes a lesson in political self-destruction. His experience remains unique, but also strangely representative of the political era in which he lived and worked. That, in a nutshell, is the value of political biography.

This is a call for a return to the art of biography, and a request that scholars once again embrace this form of historical writing. Without it, we will lose the individual, human dimension of our political history. Without brave biographers to lead the way, future studies of politics and policy in the United States will fail to portray a complete story of American government in the second half of this century.

Betty K. Koed is the Assistant Historian of the United States Senate and can be contacted by email at: Betty_Koed@sec.senate.gov. She holds a Ph.D. from University of California-Santa Barbara and edits the print and online versions of the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress.

1. Richard Broome, ed., Tracing Past Lives: The Writing of Historical Biography (Victoria, Australia: History Institute, 1995), vii.

2. Stephen B. Oates, ed., Biography as High Adventure: Life-Writers Speak on Their Art (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986), ix.

3. Oates, ix.

4. Broome, viii-ix.

5. Oates, 93.

6. Oates, 86.

7. James L. Clifford, ed., Biography as an Art: Selected Criticism, 1560-1960 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), ix.

8. Broome, 6.

9. Oates, 93.

10. Broome, 4.