A lively, informative mix of genealogy and genetics.
A soup-to-nuts look at how we can use the tools of genealogy, family stories, cultural history and genetics to gain insight into our own lives and the world in which we live.
Kenneally (The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language, 2007), a freelance journalist whose essays have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times and New Scientist, successfully attempts a “synthesis between the ways we consider genes and health, genes and culture, genes and history, genes and race and genes and special traits.” Genealogical research has become a popular pastime, with records easily available online. The author uses her Australian family as a jumping-off point, beginning with her father's evident discomfort in discussing his own family history. She discovered that her ancestors—like many of the first white settlers of Australia—were convicts transported there from Britain. It was “a unique social and economic experiment,” she writes. While serving their sentences, many “became educated…and once released, they became teachers, surgeons and lawyers and rose to positions of power in the government.” The abundant resources and scarcity of labor created opportunities for their rehabilitation, and their progeny showed no predisposition to criminality. Kenneally illustrates how the intersection of genetic information with family histories and census data can engender surprising (and sometimes unsettling) results—e.g., the identification of a modern American descendant of Genghis Khan. The author reveals a curious twist in the saga of the Woodsons, a black family who proudly traced their descent to Thomas Jefferson and his slave mistress, Sally Hemings. Through their efforts, the Hemings-Jefferson relationship was established, but genetic testing proved that their family, who were descendants of Hemings’ first son, had a different father.
A lively, informative mix of genealogy and genetics.Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-0670025558
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A heartfelt if somewhat unsurprising view of old age by the former president. Carter (Living Faith, 1996, etc.) succinctly evaluates the evolution and current status of federal policies concerning the elderly (including a balanced appraisal of the difficulties facing the Social Security system). He also meditates, while drawing heavily on autobiographical anecdotes, on the possibilities for exploration and intellectual and spiritual growth in old age. There are few lightning bolts to dazzle in his prescriptions (cultivate family ties; pursue the restorative pleasures of hobbies and socially minded activities). Yet the warmth and frankness of Carter’s remarks prove disarming. Given its brevity, the work is more of a call to senior citizens to reconsider how best to live life than it is a guide to any of the details involved.
Pub Date: Oct. 26, 1998
ISBN: 0-345-42592-8
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.
Four decades after Watergate shook America, journalist Woodward (The Price of Politics, 2012, etc.) returns to the scandal to profile Alexander Butterfield, the Richard Nixon aide who revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes and effectively toppled the presidency.
Of all the candidates to work in the White House, Butterfield was a bizarre choice. He was an Air Force colonel and wanted to serve in Vietnam. By happenstance, his colleague H.R. Haldeman helped Butterfield land a job in the Nixon administration. For three years, Butterfield worked closely with the president, taking on high-level tasks and even supervising the installation of Nixon’s infamous recording system. The writing here is pure Woodward: a visual, dialogue-heavy, blow-by-blow account of Butterfield’s tenure. The author uses his long interviews with Butterfield to re-create detailed scenes, which reveal the petty power plays of America’s most powerful men. Yet the book is a surprisingly funny read. Butterfield is passive, sensitive, and dutiful, the very opposite of Nixon, who lets loose a constant stream of curses, insults, and nonsensical bluster. Years later, Butterfield seems conflicted about his role in such an eccentric presidency. “I’m not trying to be a Boy Scout and tell you I did it because it was the right thing to do,” Butterfield concedes. It is curious to see Woodward revisit an affair that now feels distantly historical, but the author does his best to make the story feel urgent and suspenseful. When Butterfield admitted to the Senate Select Committee that he knew about the listening devices, he felt its significance. “It seemed to Butterfield there was absolute silence and no one moved,” writes Woodward. “They were still and quiet as if they were witnessing a hinge of history slowly swinging open….It was as if a bare 10,000 volt cable was running through the room, and suddenly everyone touched it at once.”
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1644-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2015
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