The third volume of Nash's definitive biography further enhances the stature of a too often disparaged great American. Nash begins with the US entry into WW I in April 1917, at a point when Hoover's extraordinary humanitarian efforts had already saved nearly ten million Belgians and French from starvation. Nash records the myriad problems Hoover faced when President Wilson made him the national ``food administrator,'' charged with ensuring that Americans had enough to eat while still exporting sufficient food to keep the embattled Allies in the war. Hoover was labeled the ``food dictator'' by hostile Farm Belt congressmen when he tried to mobilize and impose national controls on agriculture, and he quickly aroused the ire of farmers as well. But the former mining engineer was right: He clearly foresaw the problems of runaway inflation and serious food shortages as countries bid for food on the open market during panic times. Ironically, this quintessentially individualist businessman fought for, and got, strict government control of food production, food prices, and export quotas. As Nash shows, Hoover's finely tuned management abilities and determination accomplished the impossible: Neither Americans nor their allies went hungry. (``Food will win the war,'' Hoover argued, and Wilson listened.) He sketches a portrait of an intelligent, exceedingly complex man who lacked social graces but, in contrast to his tough exterior, frequently cried in private at the plight of the Belgian people. He was a marvel of dedication and hard work. Nash leaves the ``Great Engineer'' using his formidable abilities in the postWW I world to halt the spread of Communism over a devastated Europe by monitoring food distribution. Nash's well-researched reporting of Hoover's public life in 191718 should be of interest to scholars, but for the general reader, an entire volume covering two years in Hoover's life may offer more detail than they need. (41 photos, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-393-03841-6
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1996
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
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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