Featuring the use of new archives, a highly regarded historian offers a significant reappraisal.
A freshly critical life of the great American general, whose “spectacular successes were always haunted by his equally spectacular failures.”
Like Napoleon, Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) still inspires countless biographies, so it’s hard to say why we need another after excellent works by William Manchester, Geoffrey Perret, and Mark Perry—except perhaps to set the record straight. Accomplished historian and Hudson Institute senior fellow Herman (The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization, 2013, etc.) sets out to do just that, arguing that MacArthur, like Napoleon, was an original, and though he was deemed arrogant, vain, and imperious, he had “an epic breadth” to his military career like no other. Moreover, though President Harry Truman dismissed him for insubordination over his criticism of policy in the Korean War, the general was carrying out that policy while publicly (and rightly) questioning the efficacy of America’s strategy there. Herman asserts that in order to get past MacArthur the legend, readers must delve into three important aspects of his life: his relationship with his father, Arthur MacArthur, the Mexican War hero and military governor of the Philippines, whose standards of duty and excellence the son emulated his whole life; his tie to his strong-willed, adoring mother, who helped shape his early goals starting at West Point and informed his other relationships with women; and his skill as a military strategist, displayed first under Gen. John Pershing’s command in France during World War I, then in the Philippines and Pacific theater in World War II, and finally at Inchon, South Korea. Herman underscores the general’s key role in bolstering the interwar American military and later advocating relentlessly to build up the Philippines army, despite apathy from Washington. Fatal blunders at Bataan and the Yalu River, among others, should not overshadow the general’s far-sightedness in envisioning the early rise of the Pacific Rim.
Featuring the use of new archives, a highly regarded historian offers a significant reappraisal.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9488-9
Page Count: 960
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
Totally enthralling, masterful, and passionate, this book should garner serious consideration for a variety of book prizes.
A majestic biography of “history’s most creative genius.”
With many exceptional popular history books under his belt, Isaacson (History/Tulane Univ.; The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, 2014, etc.) is close to assuming the mantle currently held by David McCullough. Here, Isaacson takes on another complex, giant figure and transforms him into someone we can recognize. The author believes the term “genius” is too easily bandied about, but Leonardo (1452-1519), from the tiny village of Vinci, near Florence, was “one of the few people in history who indisputably deserved—or, to be more precise, earned—that appellation.” He was self-taught and “willed his way to his genius.” With joyous zest, Isaacson crafts a marvelously told story “of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical.” Like a child in a candy store, Isaacson often stops to exclaim; he shares his enthusiasm, and it’s contagious. For the author, the starting point are da Vinci’s notebooks, all 7,200 pages, the “greatest record of curiosity ever created.” Da Vinci’s groundbreaking, detailed drawings charted the inner worlds of the skull, heart, muscles, brain, birds’ wings, and a working odometer, along with doodles and numerous to-do lists. In his iconic Vitruvian Man, completed when he was 38 and struggling to learn Latin, “Leonardo peers at himself with furrowed brow and tries to grasp the secrets of his own nature.” Isaacson is equally insightful with the paintings, of which there are few. The Last Supper is a “mix of scientific perspective and theatrical license, of intellect and fantasy.” Regarding the uncompleted Mona Lisa, he writes “never in a painting have motion and emotion, the paired touchstones of Leonardo’s art, been so intertwined.” As Isaacson wisely puts it, we can all learn from Leonardo.
Totally enthralling, masterful, and passionate, this book should garner serious consideration for a variety of book prizes.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-3915-4
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Daniels emerges as a force to be reckoned with—and not someone to cross. Of interest to politics junkies but with plenty of...
A lively, candid memoir from person-in-the-news Daniels.
The author is a household name for just one reason, as she allows—adding, though, that “my life is a lot more interesting than an encounter with Donald Trump.” So it is, and not without considerable effort on her part. Daniels—not her real name, but one, she points out, that she owns, unlike the majority of porn stars—grew up on the wrong side of town, the product of a broken home with few prospects, but she is just as clearly a person of real intelligence and considerable business know-how. Those attributes were not the reason that Trump called her on a fateful night more than a decade ago, but she put them to work, so much so that in some preliminary conversation, he proclaimed—by her account, his talk is blustery and insistent—that “our businesses are kind of a lot alike, but different.” The talk led to what “may have been the least impressive sex I’d ever had, but clearly, he didn’t share that opinion.” The details are deeply unpleasant, but Daniels adds nuance to the record: She doesn’t find it creepy that Trump likened her to his daughter, and she reckons that as a reality show host, he had a few points in his favor even if he failed to deliver on a promise to get her on The Apprentice. The author’s 15 minutes arrived a dozen years later, when she was exposed as the recipient of campaign hush money. Her account of succeeding events is fast-paced and full of sharp asides pointing to the general sleaziness of most of the players and the ugliness of politics, especially the Trumpian kind, which makes the porn industry look squeaky-clean by comparison.
Daniels emerges as a force to be reckoned with—and not someone to cross. Of interest to politics junkies but with plenty of lessons on taking charge of one’s own life.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-20556-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2018
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