Excellent detail for certain readers, too much information for others.
Authoritative first of a two-part history of Britain around the time of World War II.
Todman (History/Queen Mary Univ. of London; The Great War: Myth and Memory, 2006) prefaces this sweeping, (overly?) exhaustive look at British society during these fraught years by referring to his grandparents experiencing the war as “the defining moment of their lives.” He tells this story “as it went along”—i.e., as the citizens would have endured it daily rather than with the hindsight we enjoy. Indeed, the late 1930s were marked by joyous celebrations: there was a new king in 1937 (after the depressing turmoil of Edward VIII’s abdication), and in the next year, the new Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s triumphant return from appeasing Hitler in Munich. Less than two decades after the last conflagration, few Britons, notes the author, “believed that another ‘great’ war would be anything less than a disaster for humanity.” Much of the detail of the run-up to war with Germany involves the machinations of government—i.e., Conservative versus Labour—and military preparedness: the doubling of the Territorial Army and escalation of the navy and Royal Air Force, all requiring enormous expense. To get a sense of what Britons were really feeling, Todman enlists, along with extensive use of archives and periodicals, the material gathered by Charles Madge’s social scientific experiment, the Mass-Observation: detailed, ongoing descriptions gathered by regular people across the country to reveal a true sense of “public opinion.” The author also includes numerous firsthand accounts from citizens, especially during the Blitz, which targeted British ports and industry and prompted evacuations of children and the vulnerable, who formed fire-watching services and united popular support for retaliation. In addition, Todman examines the participation of the whole of the British Empire and the galvanizing effort of the new prime minister, Winston Churchill.
Excellent detail for certain readers, too much information for others.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-19-062180-3
Page Count: 832
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
HISTORY | MILITARY | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.
A highly instructive exploration of “current affairs and…the immediate future of human societies.”
Having produced an international bestseller about human origins (Sapiens, 2015, etc.) and avoided the sophomore jinx writing about our destiny (Homo Deus, 2017), Harari (History/Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) proves that he has not lost his touch, casting a brilliantly insightful eye on today’s myriad crises, from Trump to terrorism, Brexit to big data. As the author emphasizes, “humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better. Every person, group, and nation has its own tales and myths.” Three grand stories once predicted the future. World War II eliminated the fascist story but stimulated communism for a few decades until its collapse. The liberal story—think democracy, free markets, and globalism—reigned supreme for a decade until the 20th-century nasties—dictators, populists, and nationalists—came back in style. They promote jingoism over international cooperation, vilify the opposition, demonize immigrants and rival nations, and then win elections. “A bit like the Soviet elites in the 1980s,” writes Harari, “liberals don’t understand how history deviates from its preordained course, and they lack an alternative prism through which to interpret reality.” The author certainly understands, and in 21 painfully astute essays, he delivers his take on where our increasingly “post-truth” world is headed. Human ingenuity, which enables us to control the outside world, may soon re-engineer our insides, extend life, and guide our thoughts. Science-fiction movies get the future wrong, if only because they have happy endings. Most readers will find Harari’s narrative deliciously reasonable, including his explanation of the stories (not actually true but rational) of those who elect dictators, populists, and nationalists. His remedies for wildly disruptive technology (biotech, infotech) and its consequences (climate change, mass unemployment) ring true, provided nations act with more good sense than they have shown throughout history.
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-51217-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.
Jackie Kennedy's secret service agent Hill and co-author McCubbin team up for a follow-up to Mrs. Kennedy and Me (2012) in this well-illustrated narrative of those five days 50 years ago when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Since Hill was part of the secret service detail assigned to protect the president and his wife, his firsthand account of those days is unique. The chronological approach, beginning before the presidential party even left the nation's capital on Nov. 21, shows Kennedy promoting his “New Frontier” policy and how he was received by Texans in San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth before his arrival in Dallas. A crowd of more than 8,000 greeted him in Houston, and thousands more waited until 11 p.m. to greet the president at his stop in Fort Worth. Photographs highlight the enthusiasm of those who came to the airports and the routes the motorcades followed on that first day. At the Houston Coliseum, Kennedy addressed the leaders who were building NASA for the planned moon landing he had initiated. Hostile ads and flyers circulated in Dallas, but the president and his wife stopped their motorcade to respond to schoolchildren who held up a banner asking the president to stop and shake their hands. Hill recounts how, after Lee Harvey Oswald fired his fatal shots, he jumped onto the back of the presidential limousine. He was present at Parkland Hospital, where the president was declared dead, and on the plane when Lyndon Johnson was sworn in. Hill also reports the funeral procession and the ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery. “[Kennedy] would have not wanted his legacy, fifty years later, to be a debate about the details of his death,” writes the author. “Rather, he would want people to focus on the values and ideals in which he so passionately believed.”
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3149-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
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