Jane Addams: Spirit in Action »

Louise W. Knight is a writer and consultant to nonprofits and a former college administrator. The author of Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy, she lives in Evanston, Illinois.

In this landmark biography, Jane Addams becomes America's most admired and most hated woman—and wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Barnes & Noble Review

Books about people who devote their lives to grand causes can wind up feeling like one long meal, full of fiber but short on flavor, with a side of hagiography. But Knight has resisted the urge to turn Addams into "Saint Jane," revealing instead a complicated woman elated by the small pleasure of talking with a child at Hull House or deeply troubled by the brutal personal attacks prompted by her pacifism. The result is a biography that's not only vital for students of American history, but highly readable, a poignant rendering of the woman and the era she helped to shape.