In addition to her Underground Railroad activities, Harriet Tubman, the African-American abolitionist, was the fist woman to lead a military expedition in an American war. In later life she reinvented herself as a women's rights pioneer. This biography, designed for high school students, goes beyond the mythology surrounding this African-American icon by offering an objective portrait of a human being who was intelligent and shrewd but also self-righteous and stubborn. The biography shifts between the contextual and the personal to shed light on Tubman as a woman who was shaped by her times. Of special interest is the controversy over whether she rescued or kidnapped a young woman she called her niece. The book is illustrated with b&w historical photos. McGowan was editor of The Harriet Tubman Journal. Kashatus is former curator of a Chester Country Historical Society exhibit on the Underground Railroad. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)