Professor Thomas Neville Bonner who is a distinguished historian and has authored several books about medical education has produced a real literary gem in "Iconoclast-Abraham Flexner and a life in learning". Abraham Flexner and his brother Simon were true giants in reforming medical education and introducing scientific medical research respectively in the USA at the beginning of 20th century. Abraham Flexner's life story is traced with marked clarity and precision of details in this remarkable book. Professor Bonner informs us about his fascination with Abraham Flexner's work in the Introduction by reading his first book "The American College" followed by the famous "Flexner Report- Medical Education in the US and Canada" published in 1910. He then takes us through Abraham's early years growing up as the youngest son of poor immigrant Jewish parents in late 19th century in Reconstruction Louisville, Kentucky, his graduation from high school, attendance at the newly opened Johns Hopkins University and coming back to Louisville at age 19 to become a teacher at his alma mater, Louisville Male High School. Thereafter he becomes principal of his own highly successful preparatory school. At age 42, he " breaks free" from Louisville and enrolls at Harvard and susequently at Oxford in Britain and then at Berlin University in Germany. On his return back to the U.S.A, he is commissioned by Henry Pritchett of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to survey 155 medical schools in north America. Flexner Report was a scathing critique of the deplorable conditions of the then extant medical schools and catapulted him into an education specialist status overnite.After being hired by the Rockefeller Foundation, Abraham Flexner was in a unique position to implement medical education reforms, start full-time plan and improve university-hospital affiliations by being able to disburse huge sums of Rockefeller largesse.Bonner points out the immense influence Abraham Flexner enjoyed being at the helm of an epochal reform movement in medical education. He was an author, a negotiator, a highly effective fund-raiser and a philanthropist. He established the Instiute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ which became an intellectual powerhouse , through the philanthropy of Louis Bamberger and was solely responsible for Albert Einstein's immigration to the USA. Abraham Flexner's long life was a multi-faceted and highly eventful one. Professor Bonner has done an admirable job in writing this thoroughly researched and definitive biography which will serve as a highly dependable reference work for future researchers. He writes with great clarity and conviction. The book reads like a novel with tremendous intrigue and drama. I recommend this book as a required reading for medical students, physicians and medical educators.General public will also find this book extremely enjoyable and informative