A balanced, unusually well-written account of the history of the Wall: how it came to be built, how it functioned, and why it was torn down. Epler begins with a concise summary of German history since WW I, outlining the social trends that culminated in the Soviet takeover of eastern Germany in 1945 and the conflicts among the former allies that hardened attitudes on both sides. Having established the background, she shows how the East Germans moved to stop the flow of refugees and the economic pressures throughout Berlin. After stories of people trying to break through the wall even after guards were ordered to shoot to kill, Epler credits the final breakthroughs to Gorbachev's policies, which filtered through other East European countries to Germany. Though clearly pro-Western, the author fairly presents the problems that have cropped up with German reunification. A good selection for coverage of these important, almost- current events. Source notes; chronology; bibliography; suggested reading; index. Illustrations not seen. (Nonfiction. 12+)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1992
ISBN: 1-56294-114-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Millbrook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1991
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
Conversational, sometimes playful—not the sort of book that would survive vetting by school-system censors these days, but a...
A lovely, lively historical survey that takes in Neanderthals, Hohenzollerns and just about everything in between.
In 1935, Viennese publisher Walter Neurath approached Gombrich, who would go on to write the canonical, bestselling Story of Art, to translate a history textbook for young readers. Gombrich volunteered that he could do better than the authors, and Neurath accepted the challenge, provided that a completed manuscript was on his desk in six weeks. This book, available in English for the first time, is the happy result. Gombrich is an engaging narrator whose explanations are charming if sometimes vague. (Take the kid-friendly definition of truffles: “Truffles,” he says, “are a very rare and special sort of mushroom.” End of lesson.) Among the subjects covered are Julius Caesar (who, Gombrich exults, was able to dictate two letters simultaneously without getting confused), Charlemagne, the American Civil War, Karl Marx, the Paris Commune and Kaiser Wilhelm. As he does, he offers mostly gentle but pointed moralizing about the past, observing, for instance, that the Spanish conquest of Mexico required courage and cunning but was “so appalling, and so shaming to us Europeans that I would rather not say anything more about it,” and urging his young readers to consider that perhaps not all factory owners were as vile as Marx portrayed them to be, even though the good owners “against their conscience and their natural instincts, often found themselves treating their workers in the same way”—which is to say, badly.
Conversational, sometimes playful—not the sort of book that would survive vetting by school-system censors these days, but a fine conception and summarizing of the world’s checkered past for young and old.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2005
ISBN: 0-300-10883-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2005
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