The growth of social and urban history has seemingly diminished the relevance of biography as a genre of historical study. An emphasis on quantifiable data and theoretical models has often created bloodless narratives in which human actors make only brief appearances. Wendell Pritchett, a former University of Pennsylvania law professor and now chancellor of Rutgers University–Camden, demonstrates that this need not be the case. His deeply researched, eloquently written biography of the urban reformer Robert C. Weaver is both a fine-grained analysis of policy developments and a broad-brushed story of how an individual shaped, and was shaped by, the times in which he lived.

Weaver was a fascinating, though sometimes enigmatic, figure. Born in 1907 in Washington, DC, Weaver – an African American – grew up in a neighbourhood where there were virtually no other black families. Despite this early acquaintance with segregation, Weaver benefited from a highly educated and upwardly mobile family. As Pritchett insightfully notes, Weaver ‘entered a world of both prejudice and privilege’ (p. 8). Weaver eventually earned a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard in 1934; became part of the so-called Black Cabinet (a group of African Americans who informally advised the Roosevelt administration); and held positions in the Department of the Interior, the US Housing Authority and the War Production Board. He also served as the administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency and the first secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The latter was the first time an African American held a federal cabinet position. Pritchett wisely employs a linear chronology and short chapters to frame and assess these various professional achievements.

Pritchett is not blind to Weaver's shortcomings and idiosyncrasies. Painfully polite and officious, Weaver did not have the temperament to be an elected official or full-time academic. Pritchett notes that even as an administrator, Weaver's cold demeanour was derisively labelled by colleagues as the ‘Weaver treatment’ (p. 189). Pritchett rightly avoids untethered speculations about Weaver's personality, though at several points he suggests Weaver suffered from the twoness that W.E.B. DuBois identified as a major psychological stress afflicting African Americans. The untimely deaths of Weaver's only sibling and child might have also affected his interactions with others, but there seems to have been scant information for Pritchett to mine concerning these incidents. Perhaps most important, Pritchett uses Weaver's life and thought to illustrate racial liberalism – the notion that discrimination stems primarily from ignorance, and that policymakers must use administrative and legal means to combat both the discrimination and the ignorance. Weaver and other race liberals were successful in using this approach to eliminate some forms of discrimination (for example, restrictive housing covenants), though it was hardly a panacea. For this and other reasons, civil rights struggles still face ‘unmet aspirations’ (p. 349).

Pritchett's work makes a significant contribution to the literature on urban history, and will doubtless become the standard work on Weaver. His insights will benefit scholars and students in a number of fields, including urban studies, sociology and political science.