A fully realized, important portrait of a significant 20th-century leader.
The “first full-scale biography” of Israel's controversial Prime Minister Menachem Begin (1913–1992).
Israel Hayom op-ed page editor Shilon compellingly integrates his subject’s life story and his contributions into the origins and growth of the state of Israel. Born in Brest-Litovsk, Begin escaped after his family was murdered by the Nazis; he was subsequently imprisoned by the Soviets. Released to fight for the Jewish units of the Anders Army, he was deployed to the Palestinian territories. There, he joined the Jewish underground, rising to leadership in the Irgun faction, which was responsible for blowing up the British headquarters at the King David Hotel. Shilon provides a fascinating account of Begin's government service between 1977 and 1983, including what became known as the “Begin doctrine,” under which Israel committed to not allowing “our enemies to develop weapons of mass destruction,” as well as the parallel peace agreement with Anwar Sadat's Egypt, for which Begin was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The author’s account of the earlier conflicts over how to fight, who the enemy was, and what Israel would be shows how his subject participated in shaping the political lineups within the country for years after his tenure. Marginalized politically for many years and ridiculed by David Ben-Gurion and members of the Mapai, Begin was recalled from the fringes to government service prior to the outbreak of the 1967 war. Subsequently, he worked closely with Ariel Sharon and a group of generals, who helped him to victory and joined his coalition. Shilon demonstrates how Begin's religious conceptions greatly affected his country's political landscape.
A fully realized, important portrait of a significant 20th-century leader.Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-300-16235-6
Page Count: 584
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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