Set to come out on the 25th anniversary of the New York Times's publication of the Pentagon Papers—the 7,000-page secret history of the government's Vietnam War decision-making commissioned by Robert S. McNamara in 1967—Rudenstine's book is a remarkable achievement. Law professor Rudenstine (Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School) has mined the primary and secondary sources, interviewed three dozen important players, and unearthed new evidence. The result: a very readable political narrative with scholarly analysis of the landmark case. The excerpts and analyses of the papers that ran in the New York Times represented the largest unauthorized disclosure of classified documents in American history. The Nixon administration's effort to stop the Times (and later the Washington Post) marked the first time in American history that the government had sued to prevent newspapers from disclosing information for national security reasons. District Judge Murray Gurfein's order to cease publishing the material in question was the first time an American judge had taken such action against a newspaper. This substantive book's value lies in the breadth of the narrative, the sharpness of Rudenstine's analyses of the case's legal aspects, and the author's surprising but persuasively argued conclusion that the papers ``contained information that could have seriously harmed national security if disclosed.'' The government was unable to convince a majority of the US Supreme Court of that fact. And, as Rudenstine points out, the newspapers did not publish anything that had a negative impact on peace talks or that compromised diplomatic initiatives outside Vietnam. The Supreme Court chose ``to risk the dangers inherent in a freer press because the alternative resolution—enhancing government power to censor the press—was even more threatening to a stable and vital democracy.'' Nothing less than the definitive account of the Pentagon Papers case. (37 b&w photographs)
Pub Date: June 13, 1996
ISBN: 0-520-08672-4
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Univ. of California
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1996
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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