A savvy audit of the Bundesbank, which, the author observes, ``has replaced the Wehrmacht as Germany's best-known and most feared institution.'' Marsh (chief European correspondent for London's Financial Times; The Germans, 1990) offers an accessible, often absorbing, appraisal of the Federal Republic's Frankfurt-based central bank, whose ``anti-inflationary rectitude'' has made it a power to be reckoned with in global finance. After a chatty briefing on those now running the show, the author provides a detailed rundown on the Bundesbank's predecessors, most notably the Reichsbank that was put out of business in 1945. Allied forces created a transitional replacement in what was then West Germany; in 1957, Bonn established the Bundesbank as a politically independent entity that, at least in theory, isn't accountable to other agencies of federal or state government. Given its role as guardian of the deutsche mark, its statutory right to set interest rates, and Germany's post-WW II emergence as an economic colossus, the Bundesbank wields unrivaled influence over domestic policy. In turn, the strength of the D-mark has given the FRB-like institution worldwide clout. But although invariably effective, the Bundesbank is by no means infallible, and Marsh leaves little doubt that great demands will be placed on its capacities in the period immediately ahead—in particular, he cites the challenges posed by German reunification and by the integration of Europe's monetary systems. The author is more sanguine about the bank's ability to unify a formerly partitioned Fatherland than about its willingness to support a union in which EC counterparts might not be as committed to currency stability as the Bundesbank is. A perceptive evaluation of a pivotal financial institution that's been overtaken by events it helped precipitate.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-8129-2158-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Times/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1993
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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