Utterly vital in its historical prowess, essential in its portraits of lived experiences.
Adapted for teen readers from the 2019 original, Treuer’s seminal account offers a fresh, distinct historical reconsideration.
The author’s purpose is clear from the outset: to present a deliberate counternarrative to mainstream assumptions and push back against the constrictive specter of the framing of the Wounded Knee massacre of 1890 as a turning point representing the end of Native American cultures. In seven chapters spanning prehistorical times to the present, this chronicle of Indigenous communities and peoples in North America is a scintillating version reduced in length but not breadth. Beginning with a brief overview of the pre-colonization period and the ensuing violent disruptions of the Europeans, the opening chapter also covers Indigenous resistance. The next chapter depicts the role of the U.S. government in an ever increasing, violent push for assimilation via boarding schools and the Dawes Act. The further the book goes into the 20th century and the rise of Native American social action in the 1960s and 1970s, such as through the American Indian Movement, the more Treuer includes firsthand stories from his research interviews. These accounts clearly delineate the ties between the continued impact of the past and the possibilities for a viable, hard-fought future for Native American lives. This essential work ends with a review of the Standing Rock protest and its potential and asks the fundamental, yet-to-be-answered question: “What kind of country do we want to be?”
Utterly vital in its historical prowess, essential in its portraits of lived experiences. (notes, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-20347-7
Page Count: 286
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
A remarkable biography.
The story of a flawed, complicated man.
The son of a distant Minnesota congressman and a demanding, well-educated mother, young Charles Lindbergh grew up shuttling among the family farm, his grandfather’s Detroit home, and Washington, D.C. Intelligent but uninterested in school, he began flying at age 19, getting involved in barnstorming and becoming an Air Service Reserve Corps officer. He used a combination of mechanical aptitude and moxie to successfully cross the Atlantic in a 1927 solo nonstop flight and was instantly propelled into worldwide celebrity. Success came at tremendous cost, however, when his infant son was kidnapped and murdered. Lindbergh was also his own enemy: His infatuation with eugenics led him into overt racism, open admiration for Hitler, and public denunciation of Jews. Fallen from grace, he nonetheless flew 50 clandestine combat missions in the South Pacific. He became an advocate for animal conservation but also had three secret families in addition to his acknowledged one. Fleming (Eleanor Roosevelt's in My Garage!, 2018, etc.) expertly sources and clearly details a comprehensive picture of a well-known, controversial man. Her frequent use of diaries allows much of the story to come through in Charles’ and his wife Anne’s own words. The man who emerges is hateable, pitiable, and admirable all at the same time, and this volume measures up to the best Lindbergh biographies for any audience.
A remarkable biography. (bibliography, source notes, picture credits, index) (Biography. 12-adult)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-64654-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
Skilled and graceful exploration of the soul of an astonishing human being.
Full-immersion journalist Kidder (Home Town, 1999, etc.) tries valiantly to keep up with a front-line, muddy-and-bloody general in the war against infectious disease in Haiti and elsewhere.
The author occasionally confesses to weariness in this gripping account—and why not? Paul Farmer, who has an M.D. and a Ph.D. from Harvard, appears to be almost preternaturally intelligent, productive, energetic, and devoted to his causes. So trotting alongside him up Haitian hills, through international airports and Siberian prisons and Cuban clinics, may be beyond the capacity of a mere mortal. Kidder begins with a swift account of his first meeting with Farmer in Haiti while working on a story about American soldiers, then describes his initial visit to the doctor’s clinic, where the journalist felt he’d “encountered a miracle.” Employing guile, grit, grins, and gifts from generous donors (especially Boston contractor Tom White), Farmer has created an oasis in Haiti where TB and AIDS meet their Waterloos. The doctor has an astonishing rapport with his patients and often travels by foot for hours over difficult terrain to treat them in their dwellings (“houses” would be far too grand a word). Kidder pauses to fill in Farmer’s amazing biography: his childhood in an eccentric family sounds like something from The Mosquito Coast; a love affair with Roald Dahl’s daughter ended amicably; his marriage to a Haitian anthropologist produced a daughter whom he sees infrequently thanks to his frenetic schedule. While studying at Duke and Harvard, Kidder writes, Farmer became obsessed with public health issues; even before he’d finished his degrees he was spending much of his time in Haiti establishing the clinic that would give him both immense personal satisfaction and unsurpassed credibility in the medical worlds he hopes to influence.
Skilled and graceful exploration of the soul of an astonishing human being.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-50616-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003
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