As founder of the Peace Corps, Head Start, the Special Olympics (with wife Eunice Kennedy Shriver), and other organizations, Sargent Shriver was a key social and political figure whose influence continues to the present day. This authorized biography, exhaustively researched and finely rendered by Scott Stossel (deputy editor of <i>The Atlantic</i>), reads like an epic novel, with “Sarge” marching through the historical events of the last century—the Great Depression, World War II, JFK's assassination, the Cold War, and many more. <i>Sarge </i>gives us a complete account of Shriver's life, as well as a thoughtful commentary on the Kennedy family, the Peace Corps, and United States and world history. It is a riveting and comprehensive reconstruction of a life that exemplifies what it means to be a true American.