The British author provides finely textured, subtle shading to a well-known American Founding Father.
A fleshed-out examination of Benjamin Franklin’s affinity with England.
British scholar Goodwin (Fatal Rivalry: Flodden, 1513: Henry VIII and James IV and the Decisive Battle for Renaissance Britain, 2013, etc.) takes up the case of Franklin’s time in England, which proved to be quite fruitful. Franklin spent two stints in London, first as a young printer’s apprentice learning the trade between 1724 and 1726 and then as a mature professional, scientist, author, and political representative for the Pennsylvania Assembly and Deputy Postmaster for America between 1757 and 1775. By the end, in the midst of the full-blown Colonial insurrection, Franklin was compelled to travel home to Philadelphia just prior to his arrest as what Parliament referred to as “one of the bitterest and most mischievous Enemies this Country had ever known.” The gentleman philosopher and winner of the Royal Society’s highest award for his groundbreaking work in electrical conduction, Franklin was warmly welcomed and celebrated in London when he first arrived in 1757. Enjoying a comfortable life on Craven Street, being admitted into the houses of the influential, and partaking in an intellectual flirtation with the young Polly Stevenson, Franklin nonetheless maneuvered discreetly but effectively to press for American grievances—e.g., against the Stamp Act and Quartering Act. However, his initial resistance to these strictures underestimated the American mood of revolt, and he soon actively propounded reconciliation for the benefit especially of less-restrictive trade and commerce between motherland and colony. Goodwin threads Franklin’s way among diverse British-American influences with a light, sure touch and fascinating detail. Overall, Franklin is shown as an astute player of men who subscribed to his own Poor Richard saying: “Let all Men know thee, but no man know thee thoroughly.”
The British author provides finely textured, subtle shading to a well-known American Founding Father.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-300-22024-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
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
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
