When Neil Thomas Proto started delving into the life of Yale University president A. Bartlett Giamatti, he expected to tell a story of tremendous personal and professional accomplishment — a tale of a life well-lived. What he found was something quite a bit more complex.

Proto’s book, “Fearless: A. Bartlett Giamatti and the Battle for Fairness in America,” will be released by Excelsior Editions, an imprint of the State University of New York Press, on May 1.