
Personal History
#510 of 3,809 books · #236 in Biography & Memoir
Won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography (1998).
Personal History won the Pulitzer Prize and was a #1 National Bestseller. In this widely acclaimed memoir, Katharine Graham tells her story—one that is extraordinary both for the events it encompasses and for the courage, candor, and dignity of its telling. Here is the awkward child who grew up amid material wealth and emotional isolation; the young bride who watched her brilliant, charismatic husband—a confidant to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson—plunge into the mental illness that would culminate in his suicide. And here is the widow who shook off her grief and insecurity to take on a president and a pressman's union as she entered the profane boys' club of the newspaper business. Personal History is an exemplary record of our history and of the woman who played such a shaping role within them, discovering her own strength and sense of self as she confronted—and mastered—the personal and professional crises of her fascinating life.
- Publisher
- Vintage
- ISBN-13
- 9780307758934
- Genre
- Topics
- Newspaper industry and journalismWatergate and Pentagon PapersPersonal resilience and leadership
Awards
- Pulitzer Prize for Biography or AutobiographyWonMajor(1998)
Other awarded books from Katharine Graham
Katharine Graham has no other awarded or shortlisted books yet.
If you liked Personal History, you could also like these

All the President's Men
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
0 wins · 4 score

The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy
David Nasaw
0 wins · 9 score

Watergate: A New History
Garrett M. Graff
0 wins · 4 score

In Search of History: A Personal Adventure
Theodore H. White
0 wins · 8 score

Reporter: A Memoir
Seymour M. Hersh
0 wins · 3 score

Mary McGrory The First Queen of Journalism
John Norris
0 wins · 3 score

John Adams
David McCullough
1 win · 15 score

The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington’s Most Private First Lady
Heath Hardage Lee
0 wins · 1 score

The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker
Amy Reading
0 wins · 8 score

George F. Kennan: An American Life
John Lewis Gaddis
2 wins · 24 score

Richard Nixon: The Life
John A. Farrell
1 win · 14 score

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
Doris Kearns Goodwin
1 win · 15 score

Success Story: The Life and Times of S. S. McClure
Peter Lyon
0 wins · 4 score

Profiles in Courage
John F. Kennedy
1 win · 12 score

The Private Years
Charles Capper
1 win · 8 score