A capacious, prodigiously researched biography from a top-shelf historian.
A revisionist portrait of a maligned monarch.
English historian and biographer Roberts, winner of the Wolfson History Prize and many other honors, draws on abundant archival sources to create a deeply textured portrait of George III (1738-1820), whom he calls “the most unfairly traduced sovereign in the long history of the British monarchy.” Countering the characterizations of George as pompous and cruel, promulgated in such plays as Alan Bennett’s The Madness of George III and Hamilton, Roberts argues that the king was an intelligent, astute leader, dedicated to upholding the British Constitution. In addition to his passion for the arts and sciences; he was “well-meaning, hard-working, decent, dutiful, moral, cultured and kind.” A shy child, he was by no means backward, although his own mother thought he “was not quick.” Nevertheless, Roberts found that “his exercise books in the Royal Archives show that George was perfectly competent at reading and writing English by the age of nine.” By 15, he could translate classical texts, including philosophy. His father died when he was 12, and his grandfather was cruel and abusive, leading young George to see as his “surrogate father” John Stuart, a handsome, charming man 25 years older, who “introduced George to many of the artistic and intellectual passions of his life, and to the people who stimulated them.” Stuart long served as George’s confidant, adviser, and, briefly, prime minister. Roberts capably traces the complicated machinations that led to George’s selection of Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz as his wife; the roiling politics of 18th-century England; the gossip and power play that threatened his authority; the American colonists’ inevitable break from British rule (nothing to do with taxes, Roberts argues); and five episodes of manic-depressive psychosis—not, as many historians have believed, porphyria. Vividly detailed, the author’s life of George is comfortably situated in the context of British, European, and Colonial history.
A capacious, prodigiously researched biography from a top-shelf historian.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984879-26-4
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.
A decidedly warts-and-all portrait of the man many consider to be America’s greatest writer.
It makes sense that distinguished biographer Chernow (Washington: A Life and Alexander Hamilton) has followed up his life of Ulysses S. Grant with one of Mark Twain: Twain, after all, pulled Grant out of near bankruptcy by publishing the ex-president’s Civil War memoir under extremely favorable royalty terms. The act reflected Twain’s inborn generosity and his near pathological fear of poverty, the prime mover for the constant activity that characterized the author’s life. As Chernow writes, Twain was “a protean figure who played the role of printer, pilot, miner, journalist, novelist, platform artist, toastmaster, publisher, art patron, pundit, polemicist, inventor, crusader, investor, and maverick.” He was also slippery: Twain left his beloved Mississippi River for the Nevada gold fields as a deserter from the Confederate militia, moved farther west to California to avoid being jailed for feuding, took up his pseudonym to stay a step ahead of anyone looking for Samuel Clemens, especially creditors. Twain’s flaws were many in his own day. Problematic in our own time is a casual racism that faded as he grew older (charting that “evolution in matters of racial tolerance” is one of the great strengths of Chernow’s book). Harder to explain away is Twain’s well-known but discomfiting attraction to adolescent and even preadolescent girls, recruiting “angel-fish” to keep him company and angrily declaring when asked, “It isn’t the public’s affair.” While Twain emerges from Chernow’s pages as the masterful—if sometimes wrathful and vengeful—writer that he is now widely recognized to be, he had other complexities, among them a certain gullibility as a businessman that kept that much-feared poverty often close to his door, as well as an overarchingly gloomy view of the human condition that seemed incongruous with his reputation, then and now, as a humanist.
Essential reading for any Twain buff and student of American literature.Pub Date: May 13, 2025
ISBN: 9780525561729
Page Count: 1200
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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