A pleasing mix of epic sweep and meticulous research.
A new history of an important global capital.
Robertson, a member of the Scottish Parliament, spent much of his pre-parliamentary career as a journalist in Vienna, and he clearly loves the city. Surprised to find that there was no comprehensive account of the city’s history, he decided to write one. In this book, he chronicles that history, from the city’s beginnings as a Roman frontier fort to the present. For centuries, the city was the key bulwark against Islamic expansion into Europe, and Robertson recounts the numerous battles and sieges. He notes that Vienna, always famous for its bakeries, invented the croissant to mark a victory over an invading army, with the shape representing the crescent on Muslim flags. Vienna has always been a magnet for cultural influences from all over Europe, and it gradually evolved into the powerful capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Robertson leads readers through the labyrinthine politics associated with the city and notes the many famous figures—Mozart, Freud, Hitler, Stalin, Mahler, Klimt—who lived there at one time or another. In the aftermath of World War I, the empire disintegrated, but Vienna remained a crucial pivot point for the region. A dark period began when the Nazis invaded in 1938—and were largely welcomed. After World War II, Vienna was occupied by the Soviets and the Allies, and it was a whirlpool of Cold War espionage for a decade. The Russians left in 1955 after the Austrian government declared permanent neutrality. Even now, Austria is not a part of NATO. Robertson does a good job of keeping the complicated narrative straight, although the book is decidedly top-down history. Some readers may view it as essentially a procession of aristocrats, grandees, and diplomats. Nonetheless, the author is knowledgeable and has many interesting insights.
A pleasing mix of epic sweep and meticulous research.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63936-195-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
A rich, readable historical study of Lincoln’s thinking, which remains timely.
A solid exploration of Lincoln’s clear intention to create a firm peace after the Civil War.
By April 4, 1865, as the president toured the fallen Confederate capital of Richmond, after four years of political, military, and personal crisis, he had a vision for a lasting, nonpunitive peace. “In this twilight between war and peace, the outcome was certain, but the terms were not yet determined,” writes CNN anchor and senior political analyst Avlon. “Lincoln repeated his three ‘indispensable conditions’ for peace: no ceasefire before surrender, the restoration of the Union, and the end of slavery for all time. Everything else was negotiable.” Having just been confidently reelected, Lincoln knew his mission was to turn quickly from war to peace and secure the reattachment of the former Rebel states to the newly affirmed union. The author traces the evolution of Lincoln’s pioneering vision of reconciliation and reconstruction. “Working without a historic parallel to guide him,” writes Avlon, “Lincoln established a new model of leadership.” First and foremost, he insisted on unconditional surrender, followed by the establishment of the rule of law. He sought to rededicate the South to representative democracy and then move the country’s focus to the great Western expanse. The author points out how Ulysses S. Grant’s famously generous terms of surrender to Robert E. Lee at Appomattox were a direct expression of Lincoln’s wishes. Avlon also shows how the president, who was honest, pious, humble, and fond of speaking in parables, modeled his concept of peace on the golden rule. His focus sharpened in the last six weeks of his life, a period that the author examines in fascinating detail. Tough-minded but tender-hearted, Lincoln created a blueprint that has been used in a variety of scenarios since, from the Marshall Plan to the political reconciliation effected in South Africa after the defeat of apartheid.
A rich, readable historical study of Lincoln’s thinking, which remains timely.Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982108-12-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
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: 1174
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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