Examines Addams' life chronologically and thematically - her childhood of privilege and overwhelming sense of responsibility, her indefatigable determination to read every book in her small-town library, her early adoration of Lincoln, and her growing engagement in the tumults and currents of her own time, culminating in the creation of Hull-House when she was not yet thirty. Drawing on interviews with those who knew Jane Addams, on little known archival material, and, most significantly, on an unusually close reading of her voluminous writings, Elshtain reates a rich and revealing portrait of one of the most extraordinary figures in American history.