A good fit for middle and high school libraries as a useful reference.
An encyclopedic history of the emergence of life on Earth that “traces the history of life from the dawn of evolution to the present day through the lens of one hundred living things that have changed the world.”
Lloyd (What on Earth Happened?: The Complete Story of the Planet, Life, and People from the Big Bang to the Present Day, 2008, etc.) orders species chronologically and also ranks them according to the impact that these “living things have had on the path of evolution.” The book—originally titled What on Earth Evolved? and first published in 2009 in the U.K. to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species—is divided into two major sections. The first, “Before Humans,” from 4 billion to 12,000 years ago, deals with the “the impact of species that evolved in the wild”—e.g., viruses, algae, trees, fish, insects, and, eventually, Homo sapiens. The second section, “After Humans,” spans the period from “12,000 years ago to the present day” and discusses “the impact of species that thrived in the presence of modern mankind.” The author gives special emphasis to the role of viruses, which, through infection, caused mutations that induced “critical innovations” in a variety of species. He also spotlights predators such as sharks, for mastering “the art of sexual reproduction” 400 million years ago. The biggest evolutionary news occurred when “modern humans first emerged in Africa, about 160,000 years ago.” Lloyd also offers a fascinating historical sidelight on how the “potyvirus,” by causing the spectacular mutation of tulips, created the conditions for the first speculative boom and bust. He gives the lowly earthworm top ranking due to its crucial role in creating fertile soil, while Homo sapiens occupy the sixth position. “Traditional history,” writes the author, “seldom considers the impact of a range of living species that have, in their own way, had a far greater impact on the planet, life and people than human contributions, such as politics, war and inventions.”
A good fit for middle and high school libraries as a useful reference.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4088-7638-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.
A revealing biography of the fabled Manhattan hotel, in which generations of artists and writers found a haven.
Turn-of-the century New York did not lack either hotels or apartment buildings, writes Tippins (February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof In Wartime America, 2005). But the Chelsea Hotel, from its very inception, was different. Architect Philip Hubert intended the elegantly designed Chelsea Association Building to reflect the utopian ideals of Charles Fourier, offering every amenity conducive to cooperative living: public spaces and gardens, a dining room, artists’ studios, and 80 apartments suitable for an economically diverse population of single workers, young couples, small families and wealthy residents who otherwise might choose to live in a private brownstone. Hubert especially wanted to attract creative types and made sure the building’s walls were extra thick so that each apartment was quiet enough for concentration. William Dean Howells, Edgar Lee Masters and artist John Sloan were early residents. Their friends (Mark Twain, for one) greeted one another in eight-foot-wide hallways intended for conversations. In its early years, the Chelsea quickly became legendary. By the 1930s, though, financial straits resulted in a “down-at-heel, bohemian atmosphere.” Later, with hard-drinking residents like Dylan Thomas and Brendan Behan, the ambience could be raucous. Arthur Miller scorned his free-wheeling, drug-taking, boozy neighbors, admitting, though, that the “great advantage” to living there “was that no one gave a damn what anyone else chose to do sexually.” No one passed judgment on creativity, either. But the art was not what made the Chelsea famous; its residents did. Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Phil Ochs and Sid Vicious are only a few of the figures populating this entertaining book.
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-618-72634-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
In this meticulously detailed and evocative book, history comes alive, and it isn’t pretty.
A meditation on Austria’s capitulation to the Nazis. The book won the 2017 Prix Goncourt.
Vuillard (Sorrow of the Earth: Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull and the Tragedy of Show Business, 2017, etc.) is also a filmmaker, and these episodic vignettes have a cinematic quality to them. “The play is about to begin,” he writes on the first page, “but the curtain won’t rise….Even though the twentieth of February 1933 was not just any other day, most people spent the morning grinding away, immersed in the great, decent fallacy of work, with its small gestures that enfold a silent, conventional truth and reduce the entire epic of our lives to a diligent pantomime.” Having established his command of tone, the author proceeds through devastating character portraits of Hitler and Goebbels, who seduced and bullied their appeasers into believing that short-term accommodations would pay long-term dividends. The cold calculations of Austria’s captains of industries and the pathetic negotiations of leaders who knew that their protestations were mainly for show suggest the complicated complicity of a country where young women screamed for Hitler as if he were a teen idol. “The bride was willing; this was no rape, as some have claimed, but a proper wedding,” writes Vuillard. Yet the consummation was by no means as smoothly triumphant as the Nazi newsreels have depicted. The army’s entry into Austria was less a blitzkrieg than a mechanical breakdown, one that found Hitler stalled behind the tanks that refused to move as those prepared to hail his emergence wondered what had happened. “For it wasn’t only a few isolated tanks that had broken down,” writes the author, “not just the occasional armored truck—no, it was the vast majority of the great German army, and the road was now entirely blocked. It was like a slapstick comedy!” In the aftermath, some of those most responsible for Austria’s fall faced death by hanging, but at least one received an American professorship.
In this meticulously detailed and evocative book, history comes alive, and it isn’t pretty.Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-59051-969-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
GENERAL HISTORY | MODERN | WORLD | MILITARY | HISTORY
BOOK REVIEW
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