For the general reader, an account of a president who fiddled while the ingredients for a major conflagration assembled...
An idiosyncratic survey of the American political scene as the clouds gathered for Civil War.
The 1856 election of President James Buchanan, the 1857 Dred Scott decision and the proposed pro-slavery, Lecompton Constitution for the new state of Kansas threatened to settle the slavery issue in America, perpetuating forever the peculiar institution that had made the Founders squirm. In 1858, the direction of the political debate changed. Against the backdrop of Buchanan’s fecklessness, Chadwick (The General and Mrs. Washington, 2006, etc.) focuses mostly on personalities and incidents headlining the antislavery movement’s pushback. The already notorious John Brown’s Christmas raid into Missouri and the story of the Oberlin Rescuers both received national press attention, inspiring abolitionists and enraging the South. New York Senator William Seward, in speeches appealing to a “higher law” than the Constitution and warning of an “irrepressible conflict” ahead, positioned himself as the most prominent antislavery elected official and the likely presidential nominee for the Republicans in 1860. Meanwhile, Seward’s good friend, Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis, solidified his position as the South’s foremost defender and spokesman. In a series of debates during the Illinois senate race—memorably detailed in Allen Guelzo’s Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America, 2007—Abraham Lincoln made a national reputation for himself and destroyed the hope of the formidable and fence-straddling Stephen A. Douglas for higher office. Throughout the tumultuous year, Buchanan remained in deep denial, preoccupied with foreign policy and visions of territorial expansion, and more concerned with settling intra-party scores, especially with the fiery Douglas, than with effectively governing the nation. In other chapters seemingly less harmonious with his larger thesis—but forgivable for a writer incapable of dull storytelling—Chadwick looks at the pre-war careers of Robert E. Lee and William Tecumseh Sherman, two unknowns in 1858 destined for later fame.
For the general reader, an account of a president who fiddled while the ingredients for a major conflagration assembled before his eyes.Pub Date: April 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4022-0941-3
Page Count: 348
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2008
The book begins in Sri Lanka with the tsunami of 2004—a horror the author saw firsthand, and the aftermath of which he...
The latest from French writer/filmmaker Carrère (My Life as a Russian Novel, 2010, etc.) is an awkward but intermittently touching hybrid of novel and autobiography.
The book begins in Sri Lanka with the tsunami of 2004—a horror the author saw firsthand, and the aftermath of which he describes powerfully. Carrère and his partner, Hélène, then return to Paris—and do so with a mutual devotion that's been renewed and deepened by all they've witnessed. Back in France, Hélène's sister Juliette, a magistrate and mother of three small daughters, has suffered a recurrence of the cancer that crippled her in adolescence. After her death, Carrère decides to write an oblique tribute and an investigation into the ravages of grief. He focuses first on Juliette's colleague and intimate friend Étienne, himself an amputee and survivor of childhood cancer, and a man in whose talkativeness and strength Carrère sees parallels to himself ("He liked to talk about himself. It's my way, he said, of talking to and about others, and he remarked astutely that it was my way, too”). Étienne is a perceptive, dignified person and a loyal, loving friend, and Carrère's portrait of him—including an unexpectedly fascinating foray into Étienne and Juliette's chief professional accomplishment, which was to tap the new European courts for help in overturning longtime French precedents that advantaged credit-card companies over small borrowers—is impressive. Less successful is Carrère's account of Juliette's widower, Patrice, an unworldly cartoonist whom he admires for his fortitude but seems to consider something of a simpleton. Now and again, especially in the Étienne sections, Carrère's meditations pay off in fresh, pungent insights, and his account of Juliette's last days and of the aftermath (especially for her daughters) is quietly harrowing.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9261-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.
In her first nonfiction book, novelist Grande (Dancing with Butterflies, 2009, etc.) delves into her family’s cycle of separation and reunification.
Raised in poverty so severe that spaghetti reminded her of the tapeworms endemic to children in her Mexican hometown, the author is her family’s only college graduate and writer, whose honors include an American Book Award and International Latino Book Award. Though she was too young to remember her father when he entered the United States illegally seeking money to improve life for his family, she idolized him from afar. However, she also blamed him for taking away her mother after he sent for her when the author was not yet 5 years old. Though she emulated her sister, she ultimately answered to herself, and both siblings constantly sought affirmation of their parents’ love, whether they were present or not. When one caused disappointment, the siblings focused their hopes on the other. These contradictions prove to be the narrator’s hallmarks, as she consistently displays a fierce willingness to ask tough questions, accept startling answers, and candidly render emotional and physical violence. Even as a girl, Grande understood the redemptive power of language to define—in the U.S., her name’s literal translation, “big queen,” led to ridicule from other children—and to complicate. In spelling class, when a teacher used the sentence “my mamá loves me” (mi mamá me ama), Grande decided to “rearrange the words so that they formed a question: ¿Me ama mi mamá? Does my mama love me?”
A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-6177-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
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