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Why have so many figures throughout American history proclaimed their life stories when confronted by great political problems? 'The Claims of Experience' provides a new theory for what makes autobiography political throughout the history of the United States and today. Across five chapters, the text examines the democratic crises that encouraged a diverse cast of figures to tell their stories: Benjamin Franklin amid the revolutionary era and its aftermath, Frederick Douglass in the antebellum South and in abolitionist movements, Henry Adams in the Gilded Age and its anxieties of industrial change, Emma Goldman among the first Red Scare and state opposition to radical speech, and Whittaker Chambers amid the second Red Scare that initiated the anticommunist turn of modern conservatism.

Autobiography --- Political aspects --- History --- Autobiographies --- Egodocuments --- Memoirs --- Biography as a literary form --- History and criticism --- Technique --- Franklin, Benjamin, --- Douglass, Frederick, --- Adams, Henry, --- Goldman, Emma, --- Chambers, Whittaker. --- United States --- Biography --- History and criticism.