A timely examination of the politics and culture of Iran, courtesy of New York Times correspondent Sciolino.
Since 1979 (when she was one of the journalists who accompanied the Ayatollah Khomeini on his triumphant return from exile), Sciolino has visited Iran frequently. Here, she begins by offering 12 rules for coping with the unexpected aspects of daily Iranian life; one cautions foreigners not to misinterpret hospitality as openness (because “concealment is part of normal life”). Contrary to its popular image, Iranian society is extremely fluid—ayatollahs argue publicly with one another, rigid rules are continually bent, and even the apparently firm lines of leadership have more give than outsiders commonly assume. But since it is still the Bermuda Triangle of American foreign policy, Sciolino advises us to maintain our guard. She is not content merely to analyze Iran’s past and present, but offers telling vignettes and observations as well: she talks to a war veteran who yearns to be a martyr for Islam, interviews a woman who wants to be president, and observes a women’s aerobics class. She notes that Iranians have a strong sense of national identity (despite—or perhaps on account of—the many strictures placed on their daily lives), and she suggests that gender is the country’s fault line, imposing numerous restrictions on women in public but allowing considerable freedom in private. The country is geopolitically important and resource-rich, yet corruption and mismanagement are rife, and with revolutionary enthusiasm ebbing, it is struggling to resolve the conflict between the Islamic-based government and a new generation (65 percent of the population is under 25) that wants more social freedom and economic opportunity. Sciolino concludes by suggesting that, with reformist President Khatami at the helm, Iran is becoming more democratic and more willing to deal with the US.
Vivid reporting combines with perceptive insights in this fascinating venture behind the distorting mirrors. An important book.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-684-86290-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
Categories: GENERAL HISTORY | WORLD | HISTORY
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Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Categories: BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HOLOCAUST | HISTORY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL HISTORY
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Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL HISTORY | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HISTORICAL & MILITARY | UNITED STATES | HISTORY
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