"...a sympathetic, unsentimental and scrupulous biographer..."
— The Washington Post
Books
The Man He Became
How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency
Finalist for the Chautauqua Book Award
“This powerful book offers a vivid account of how Roosevelt’s fight for personal recovery lit his path to the White House. I could hardly put it down.”
— James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom
Ernie Pyle's War
America's Eyewitness to World War II
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
"This is the portrait of a complex, enormously gifted but tortured writer . . . but it is much more: few books about combat journalism have so vividly depicted the fascinating interactions between war correspondents, soldiers and folks back home. . . . World War II was quintessentially Ernie Pyle's war, and Mr. Tobin brilliantly explains why."
— The New York Times Book Review
To Conquer the Air
The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight
Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award
One of the Wall Street Journal's "5 Best" books on invention
“Whether judged in terms of scholarship or writing, this is an outstanding narrative of the Wright brothers and their competitors' race to fly…yet this book is larger than that story alone. It explores man’s dreams, and what is required to transform a dream into reality.”
— John Barry, author of Rising Tide and The Great Influenza
Great Projects
The Building of America from the Taming of the Mississippi to the Invention of the Internet
Companion volume to the PBS documentary series
"This engaging, profusely illustrated book is ... a well-written, entertaining historical and social record of how men and women tamed the elements and transformed the land on which they lived, mostly for the better."
— Publishers Weekly
Sing to the Colors
A Writer Explores Two Centuries at the
University of Michigan
"In Sing to the Colors, Tobin considers ideas of place, tradition, legacy, and pride while investigating two centuries of history at his alma mater. The book captures a series of moments—some well-known and celebrated, others inconspicuous or even troubling—that have contributed to the ongoing evolution of the University."
