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Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig\\u2019s King: A Life is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. \\u2014 and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself. He casts fresh light on the King family\\u2019s origins as well as MLK\\u2019s complex relationships with his wife, father, and fellow activists. King reveals a minister wrestling with his own human frailties and dark moods, a citizen hunted by his own government, and a man determined to fight for justice even if it proved to be a fight to the death. As he follows MLK from the classroom to the pulpit to the streets of Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis, Eig dramatically re-creates the journey of a man who recast American race relations and became our only modern-day founding father \\u2014 as well as the nation\\u2019s most mourned martyr.

Shermer and Eig discuss: how to write biography \\u2022\\xa0the history of the King family going back to slavery, Jim Crow, etc. \\u2022 the influence of King Sr. on Martin\\u2019s intellectual and emotional development and the Ebenezer Baptist Church \\u2022\\xa0King\\u2019s early experience with racism in the south \\u2022\\xa0King\\u2019s religious beliefs and the influence of his faith on his civil rights activism \\u2022 the influence of Gandhi and Reinhold Niebuhr on King\\u2019s strategic activism and deep belief in nonviolence \\u2022 King\\u2019s politics \\u2022 Malcolm X \\u2022 Native Americans \\u2022\\xa0gay rights \\u2022\\xa0accusations of plagiarism, and more\\u2026

Jonathan Eig is a former senior writer for the Wall Street Journal. He is the New York Times bestselling author of several books, including Ali: A Life; Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig; and Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson\\u2019s First Season. Ken Burns calls him \\u201ca master storyteller,\\u201d and Eig\\u2019s books have been listed among the best of the year by the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Sports Illustrated, and Slate. He lives in Chicago with his wife and children.