An authoritative and weighty history of France's Fourth Republic (1946-58) by the former Paris correspondent for the Times of London. By the end of WW II, many French politicians despaired of their country's chronic instability. Since 1814, regimes and governments had come and gone in an endless series of coups and scandals. Although the Third Republic lasted from 1871 to 1940, the only real constant in French government was fractious discord. The Fourth Republic epitomized all this. Its numerous personalities formed and re-formed governments, few of which lasted more than a few months. In 1946, the Communist Party commanded between a quarter and a third of the electorate and virtually took over large sections of recently nationalized industries and the trade union congress. Twelve years later, however, the Communists' power had been broken forever, the violent and intransigent antagonisms of the old order had crumbled, and the Fourth Republic had presided over the greatest single economic leap in French history. Two giant personalities dominate the '50s: de Gaulle, sulking in internal political exile and plotting his glorious return, and Pierre Mendäs-France, briefly prime minister, who saw that the colonial age was over and urged withdrawal from Algeria, only to be ignored. Giles skillfully details this intricate era in which an old European power finally crossed over into the realities of the postwar world of cheap cars, American supremacy, and affordable televisions—a world in which traditional French gloire was a scarce commodity. The Fourth Republic was the true bridge between the old France and the country we see today. A country of perfumers, vintners, and rebellious militants (at least, by reputation) had turned into a nation of technocrats, car makers, and efficient industrialists. It was a true revolution, even if none of the squabbling politicians who presided over it could claim the glory. Giles's book, at least, shows us how the turmoil related to the true achievement.
Pub Date: June 15, 1994
ISBN: 0-7867-0056-4
Page Count: 448
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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