Contrary to the modern view that we must see ourselves—our gender, our class, or culture—in everything we read, biography showcases our differences and yet asks us to admire lives and achievements we can never exactly emulate. A good biography says: I do not have to be like you—look like you, speak like you, have been raised like you, have been hurt as you have hurt, or be interested in the same things as you—to learn as you have learned.
The value of the biography is seeing the landscape of a life—the backdrop of time and place and circumstances—overlaid with the portrait of the individual whose path is shaped by chance and drive, by great purposes and un-chosen events.