Top 30 Pre-Modern (1500 – 1900) Biographies Ranked by Reviews

See an Overview of this Rating System and Algorithm Here

Top 10

#1 Ron Chernow’s Grant

4.21

Ulysses S. Grant’s life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman, or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don’t come close to capturing him, as Chernow shows in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency. Before the Civil War, Grant was flailing. His business ventures had ended dismally, and despite distinguished service in the Mexican War he ended up resigning from the army in disgrace amid recurring accusations of drunkenness…

#2 Courtney Anderson’s To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson

4.14

On February 12, 1812, Ann and Adoniram Judson sailed from Salem aboard the brig Caravan as two of the first missionaries to go out from North America. Watching the shoreline disappear from view, they could not have foreseen the impact of their journey on the future of the Christian world mission or on the thousands of men and women who would follow in their footsteps. After a short stay in India, they carried the Good News of Jesus Christ to the golden shore of Burma. Drawing on letters and church records, Courtney Anderson paints a poignant portrait of Judson’s early life in dealing with the conflict between his desire for material success and the inner call to serve God…

#3 The Autobiography of George Muller

4.08

George Müller was a man of prayer because he trusted the Lord to provide for his and the orphan’s needs who he cared for. This autobiography will encourage every Christian to trust in the Lord more and cry out to our ever living and hearing God in prayer for our needs and requests.

#4 John Piper’s The Hidden Smile of God: The Fruit of Affliction in the Lives of John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd

3.95

John Bunyan suffered long-term imprisonment, even when a simple promise to cease preaching would have freed him, and he was moved to rely on God even more… Despite month after month of debilitating depression, William Cowper’s poetry reflected the sustaining character of God and led him to worship more deeply… David Brainerd so desired to honor God that through the loneliness of wilderness ministry and the agony of tuberculosis, he pressed on, transforming world missions forever…

#5 George Marsden’s Jonathan Edwards

3.89

A controversial theologian and the author of the famous sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) ignited the momentous Great Awakening of the eighteenth century. In this definitive and long-awaited biography, Jonathan Edwards emerges as both a great American and a brilliant Christian. George Marsden evokes the world of colonial New England in which Edwards was reared—a frontier civilization at the center of a conflict between Native Americans, French Catholics, and English Protestants. Drawing on newly available sources, Marsden demonstrates how these cultural and religious battles shaped Edwards’s life and thought…

#6 John Piper’s The Legacy of Sovereign Joy: God’s Triumphant Grace in the Lives of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin

3.82

We admire these men for their greatness, but the truth is Augustine grappled with sexual passions. Martin Luther struggled to control his tongue. John Calvin fought the battle of faith with worldly weapons. Yet each man will always be remembered for the messages he declared-messages that still resound today. John Piper explores each of these men’s lives, integrating Augustine’s delight in God with Luther’s emphasis on the Word and Calvin’s exposition of Scripture. Through their strengths and struggles we can learn how to live better today. When we consider their lives, we behold the glory and majesty of God and find power to overcome our weaknesses…

#7 Ronald C. White Jr.’s A. Lincoln

3.80

Everyone wants to define the man who signed his name “A. Lincoln.” In his lifetime and ever since, friend and foe have taken it upon themselves to characterize Lincoln according to their own label or libel. In this magnificent book, Ronald C. White, Jr., offers a fresh and compelling definition of Lincoln as a man of integrity–what today’s commentators would call “authenticity”–whose moral compass holds the key to understanding his life. Through meticulous research of the newly completed Lincoln Legal Papers, as well as of recently discovered letters and photographs, White provides a portrait of Lincoln’s personal, political, and moral evolution…

#8 Timothy Egan’s The Immortal Irishman

3.78

A dashing young orator during the Great Hunger of the 1840s, Thomas Francis Meagher led a failed uprising against British rule, for which he was banished to a Tasmanian prison colony for life. But two years later he was “back from the dead” and in New York, instantly the most famous Irishman in America. Meagher’s rebirth included his leading the newly formed Irish Brigade in many of the fiercest battles of the Civil War. Afterward, he tried to build a new Ireland in the wild west of Montana — a quixotic adventure that ended in the great mystery of his disappearance, which Egan resolves convincingly at last…

#9 Howard F. Taylor’s Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret

3.76

This is the classic biography of Hudson Taylor, the missionary to China and the founder of the China Inland Mission. This is a must read for anyone considering missions or already engaged in it and encouragement to any Christian.

#10 Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton

3.65

Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. Chernow’s biography gives Hamilton his due and sets the record straight, deftly illustrating that the political and economic greatness of today’s America is the result of Hamilton’s countless sacrifices to champion ideas that were often wildly disputed during his time. “To repudiate his legacy,” Chernow writes, “is, in many ways, to repudiate the modern world.”…