The author argues effectively that Madero’s manual is essential to understanding his revolutionary zeal.
An introduction to and translation of Mexican revolutionary Francisco Madero’s Spiritist Manual.
In the winter of 1911, as Mexican revolutionaries battled to oust the dictator Porfirio Diaz, an author identified only as “Bhîma” published Manual espirita, a slim volume that promised to provide readers with “the foundations of a very lofty philosophy” known as Spiritism. The human spirit, the author wrote, “is a higher entity than our body,” its life not limited to one incarnation but reincarnated repeatedly as it evolves into ever greater states of consciousness. Bhîma, it turns out, was not some Eastern mystic but none other than Francisco Madero, who helped depose Diaz and served as president of Mexico from November 1911 to his murder in February 1913. In her book, Mayo, the pen name of Catherine Mansell, wife of a prominent Mexican economist, provides not only an English translation of Madero’s Spiritist Manual, but also a lively introduction to a text that had sunk into “almost complete obscurity” but, she argues, is essential to “understanding Madero himself, why and how he led Mexico’s 1910 Revolution, and the seething contempt of those behind the overthrow of his government and his assassination.” Madero discovered Spiritism, Mayo writes, as a student in Paris in 1891 when he stumbled upon a magazine called La Revue spirite. After reading the works of Spiritism guru Allan Kardec, he became convinced “he had incarnated on this planet in order to usher in a golden age.” But while he was motivated by his Spiritism and detailed messages he believed were sent to him by the dead, Madero had to promote his philosophy anonymously in Catholic Mexico, remaining “coyly, and sometimes very lumpily, behind the curtains.” In one message, a spirit named José purportedly reminded him, “You have been selected by your Heavenly Father to fulfill a great mission on Earth.” Mayo’s frequent digressions may irritate some readers, but she makes an effective case for taking Madero’s Spiritist beliefs seriously rather than simply dismissing them as “plumb crazy.” “One does not have to be a Spiritist to champion freedom and democracy,” Mayo concludes, “but for Madero, Mexico’s Apostle of Democracy, metaphysics and politics were inseparable.”
The author argues effectively that Madero’s manual is essential to understanding his revolutionary zeal.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0988797000
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Dancing Chiva
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
IN THE NEWS
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
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