The 100 best biographies

The foundation of Chinese historiography, required in Chinese secondary education and standard in world-history and classical-literature curricula.

Parallel Lives is among the most foundational texts of Western classical education, central to curricula in classics, ancient history, philosophy, and political thought for over two millennia. Shakespeare drew directly on it for Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens; Montaigne read it constantly; Rousseau credited it with forming his character. Wikipedia articles exist in 37 languages, reflecting its global recognition as a canonical text of antiquity.

It is widely taught in American history and literature courses, is named among Time's most important nonfiction books of the century, and is an essential text in African American studies.

Taught in virtually every American high school and across university courses in African American literature, women's studies, and autobiography. One of the American Library Association's most frequently challenged books — a perverse testament to its ubiquity — and named among the most important American autobiographies of the 20th century on lists from the Modern Library and TIME.

It is widely assigned in American history, African American studies and literature courses, and it appears on many lists of essential twentieth-century nonfiction. Time magazine named it among the most important nonfiction books of the century.

Required reading in virtually every art history curriculum worldwide, from introductory surveys to graduate seminars. Vasari's Lives appears on syllabi for Renaissance studies, Western civilization, and art historiography courses across Europe and North America. It is the foundational text of the discipline — no course on Italian Renaissance art omits it.

The standard account of Robert Moses and of how power works in American cities, assigned in urban planning, political science and journalism programmes. It appears on nearly every list of the best American nonfiction of the twentieth century.

The Autobiography is among the most assigned texts in American literature and history courses at both high school and university level, serving as the foundational document of the American self-made-man tradition. No awards data is available in the database, but the work appears on virtually every syllabus of early American literature and is regularly included in surveys of American nonfiction. It is universally treated as essential reading for understanding American culture and civic ideology.

The definitive scholarly account of Boccaccio; universally cited in Italian studies.

Our database captured no syllabus or Wikipedia signals for this title, but the book's real-world position is unambiguous: it is the standard reference for Joyce's life, cited in virtually every scholarly work on Joyce since 1959, assigned in graduate modernism courses, and named to the Modern Library's 100 Best Nonfiction list. 'Ellmann' functions as shorthand — critics cite it by the biographer's surname alone.