Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable

In presenting the life of Malcolm X, this book takes the larger-than-life figure presented in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, written with the help of Alex Haley, head on. Marable contends that the autobiography exaggerates Malcolm's criminal days and behaviors and doesn't fully examine his break with the Nation of Islam or his religious changes (in part because Haley, a liberal Republican, had ideas of his own about what Malcolm's legacy should be). The book is meticulously researched and was able to draw on a lot of new sources (papers the estate only released in 2008, Nation of Islam records that weren't previously available, FBI and other government files) to make it's case. The biography works against the easy reading of the end of Malcolm's life as a complete change to being simply in favor of integration in order to show a more complex picture. This book was especially poignant to read because Marable died just a few days before publication.