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The most recent in the highly-praised "Penguin Lives" series, Douglas Brinkley's brilliant portrait of Rosa Parks is an example of biography at its best. Brinkley's breathtaking research and literary skill are combined in this book to produce a narrative that not only vividly paints the story of Rosa Parks' life, but that also illuminates the complexities of the Civil Rights Movement of which she was an important part. Beginning with her youth in Tuskegee, Alabama, Brinkley adroitly weaves together the details from Rosa Parks' life which shaped her character and her values. In elegant prose, he depicts the path that led to the legendary day in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to move from her seat on a segregated bus; he then leads the reader through the journey of the Montgomery bus boycott and the half century Ms. Parks has lived since. This slim biography manages to trace the significance of figures from Booker T. Washington, to Martin Luther King, Jr., to Nelson Mandela in Rosa Parks' experience without ever losing focus on Ms. Parks herself. It compellingly shows that Parks' religious faith and her unwavering strength of character are essential keys to understanding her life and worldview. Brinkley's "Rosa Parks", however, is not a mere hagiography of an American heroine. The rare interviews that the author obtained from Rosa Parks and the extensive research that he unearthed throughout Alabama and Detroit, where Ms.Parks has lived for many years, provide the foundation for a biography that contains both individual depth and historical breadth. This beautifully written book is certain to become a classic for lay readers and scholars alike.