Wills (History/Georgia Southern Univ.) superbly tells the story of one of the Confederacy's authentic military geniuses, the man who consistently ``got there first with the most men'' and bedeviled the Union armies in the West throughout the Civil War. Unlike other great Civil War generals, Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-77) had little education and no formal military training. Instead, he was an enterprising frontiersman from the Tennessee and Mississippi backwoods whose many businesses included slave-trading. Wills shows, however, that Forrest was a born leader, one whom the southern code and way of life, with their emphasis on ``violence and honor,'' prepared for a military life. Wills also explains how Forrest, despite his humble origins, used his slave-trading business to become wealthy and to break into the planter class. When Tennessee voted to secede from the Union, Forrest's love of horses prompted him to organize his own cavalry regiment. Wills devotes the bulk of his account to Forrest's remarkable exploits during the Civil War—his daring escape with his command from the trap at Fort Donelson; his ``Streight bluff,'' which convinced Colonel Abel Streight to surrender nearly 1,500 Federals to only 400 Confederates; and his victory over a superior Federal force at Brice's Cross Roads. Wills also recounts the less savory aspects of Forrest's record, including the massacre of black Federal troops at Fort Pillow, and his postwar founding of the KKK. Although Forrest was unable to prevent Union victory in the West, Wills argues that the general was not simply a cavalry raider, but a commander whose battles had strategic importance. Ultimately, Wills concludes, Forrest was a blend of vice and virtue and a product of his times, ``neither the incarnation of evil his detractors have described...nor the paragon of Southern virtue some of his apologists have maintained.'' A well-written and meticulously researched biography that offers a balanced perspective on its controversial subject. (Sixteen pages of halftones—not seen.)
Pub Date: June 3, 1992
ISBN: 0-06-016832-3
Page Count: 480
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1992
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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