A thorough picking-over of Deng Xiaoping’s record and accomplishments, setting him firmly as the linchpin linking an antiquated authoritative thinking to modern growth and acceleration.
With Deng’s accession to preeminence in 1978, China was still very much in the throes of closed thinking and hostility to the imperialist West, reeling from internal wounds inflicted by Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution and choked by centralized control. In this well-considered and -researched study, Vogel, former director of Harvard’s Asia Center, portrays the whole remarkable character: from early student worker in France in the 1920s turned communist revolutionary, fired by imperialist humiliations and determined to help build a rich and strong China; to Mao’s capable tool in constructing a coalescent communist base and, by turns, Mao’s builder, finance minister and foreign and general secretary during the ’50s and ’60s. Indeed, Deng proved to be Mao’s indispensable “implementer,” to the extent of supporting Mao’s attack on outspoken intellectuals during the Hundred Flowers period and obediently carrying out Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward. Yet Deng’s reservations would render him purged and disgraced twice by Mao: during the early Cultural Revolution, then again in 1976, when Deng’s efforts at consolidation and reform (encouraging Western support, learning about modernization of industry and science and reviving higher education) were “placed in cold storage” because he was suspected of designs to seize power and restore capitalism. Under Mao’s successor Hua Guofeng, then as premier in his own right, Deng’s reforms in science, technology and education proved the impetus for the modernization that would propel China forward. His willingness to seek Western expertise and open to other countries, “emancipate minds,” encourage initiative and meritocracy and create special zones for attracting foreign investment have produced today’s economic juggernaut, yet his firm grip on the Communist party line also resulted in the tragedy of Tiananmen in 1989. Deng’s policy of staving off democratic reform by economic growth may last only so long. Vogel meticulously considers all facets of this complex leader for an elucidating—and quite hefty—study.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-674-05544-5
Page Count: 874
Publisher: Belknap/Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
An educational and inspiring biography of seminal American innovators.
A charmingly pared-down life of the “boys” that grounds their dream of flight in decent character and work ethic.
There is a quiet, stoical awe to the accomplishments of these two unprepossessing Ohio brothers in this fluently rendered, skillfully focused study by two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning and two-time National Book Award–winning historian McCullough (The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, 2011, etc.). The author begins with a brief yet lively depiction of the Wright home dynamic: reeling from the death of their mother from tuberculosis in 1889, the three children at home, Wilbur, Orville, and Katharine, had to tend house, as their father, an itinerant preacher, was frequently absent. McCullough highlights the intellectual stimulation that fed these bookish, creative, close-knit siblings. Wilbur was the most gifted, yet his parents’ dreams of Yale fizzled after a hockey accident left the boy with a mangled jaw and broken teeth. The boys first exhibited their mechanical genius in their print shop and then in their bicycle shop, which allowed them the income and space upstairs for machine-shop invention. Dreams of flight were reawakened by reading accounts by Otto Lilienthal and other learned treatises and, specifically, watching how birds flew. Wilbur’s dogged writing to experts such as civil engineer Octave Chanute and the Smithsonian Institute provided advice and response, as others had long been preoccupied by controlled flight. Testing their first experimental glider took the Wrights over several seasons to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to experiment with their “wing warping” methods. There, the strange, isolated locals marveled at these most “workingest boys,” and the brothers continually reworked and repaired at every step. McCullough marvels at their success despite a lack of college education, technical training, “friends in high places” or “financial backers”—they were just boys obsessed by a dream and determined to make it reality.
An educational and inspiring biography of seminal American innovators.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4767-2874-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
IN THE NEWS
PERSPECTIVES
An intriguing look at an iconoclast’s cultural accomplishments.
Beloved, controversial performer discusses fame and the deeper meanings of his life.
Common, subject of Fox News’ ire following his White House poetry recitation, has long been acclaimed as a thoughtful and deft hip-hop artist. In his memoir—co-authored by Bradley (Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, 2009, etc.)—he suggests great consciousness of the cultural legacy he carries: “Chicago blackness gave me understanding, awareness, street sense, and a rhythm. I learned the way that soulful people move, act, and talk.” He portrays himself as an openhearted, curious kid, trying to understand the tumult of Chicago’s African-American South Side. Obsessed with girls from an early age, he would go to the city’s museums to meet them. At the same time, he was rhyming in private, and he gave up basketball in high school to concentrate on rap, which he saw as similarly competitive. Common writes frankly about his youthful involvement with gang culture, portrayed as an inevitable rite of passage that became increasingly violent: “Crack hit the South Side of Chicago like a balled up fist.” Varied influences—his mother, friends, artistic ambitions—steered him away from it and toward a more “conscious” existence. By 1989, his early demos as Common Sense were drawing industry attention, and he dropped out of college to pursue this calling, over his mother’s objections. Much of what follows is a funny, honest showbiz narrative, moving from hip-hop to film acting. Interestingly, each chapter begins with a “letter” to someone significant in his life: e.g., his mother and father (early chapters discuss their tumultuous relationship), Emmett Till, former girlfriend Erykah Badu and collaborator Kanye West. Additionally, his mother offers occasional italicized counterpoint. As a memoir, the book succeeds based on Common’s candor, intelligence and charm, despite occasional artificial passages and broad platitudes, and he writes powerfully about his connection with President Obama.
An intriguing look at an iconoclast’s cultural accomplishments.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-2587-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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