King

Archival Summary & Scope

Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. A *New York Times* Bestseller, National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, and named a Best Book of 2023 by *The Washington Post*, *Time*, and *The New Yorker*. One of Barack Obama’s favorite books of the year.

Jonathan Eig’s *King: A Life* delivers the first major biography of Martin Luther King Jr. in decades, hailed as "the new definitive biography" by *The New York Times*. Drawing on revelatory new research and recently declassified FBI files, Eig presents an intimate, deeply human portrait of the civil rights icon. This exhaustively researched account explores King's complex relationships, emotional struggles, and radical commitment to justice, revealing him as a brilliant strategist and a man often at odds with himself, even as he reshaped American history. Eig underscores the enduring urgency of King's demands for racial and economic justice. Includes 8 pages of black-and-white photographs.