The impact of the Bible on England's experiment as a republic, charted expertly by one of the leading historians of the period. The American, French, and Russian revolutionaries consciously looked back for inspiration to the great conflict between king and parliament in mid-17th-century England; but the English of that time had no precedent, and the Bible, widely accessible in translation for over a hundred years, was their equivalent of Rousseau and Marx. Hill (The Experience of Defeat, 1984, etc.), author of over 20 books on the English revolution, offers a detailed study of just how the Bible was understood during the turbulent years of civil war, the strong-man rule by Cromwell, and the restoration of a modified monarchy. He shows how the history of Israel was used to justify both defense and defiance of the king in God's name, and how biblical allusions became a kind of code for spreading new ideas in spite of censorship. Hill draws on literary evidence, especially from his heroes Milton and Bunyan, and he traces themes such as anti-Christ, covenant, and the identification of Israel with Puritan England. Bible-reading by the common people, he says, led to a proliferation of radical groups (Diggers, Levellers, Ranters and the like) who questioned the whole established order and had a strong millenarian tendency. Hill is at home with these early socialists: Gerrard Winstanley, for example, thought all Scripture mere allegory to be freely interpreted by each one's ``inner light''—a view that in effect dethroned the Bible and led, in the following century, to its replacement by reason. Hill writes with touches of English humor, but the absence of a strong narrative makes the wealth of quotations confusing for anyone without a sound knowledge of the period. Not for the casual reader, but a gold mine for history students and those interested in the Puritan origins of the US.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-713-99078-3
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1993
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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