Reel film meets real history in this scintillating tale.
What happens when the military gets involved in an arts project.
Mitchell, the former editor of Nuclear Times and Editor & Publisher, uses his sharp investigative reporting skills to unearth this detailed, behind-the-scenes story about Hollywood’s first movie on the atomic bomb. It begins innocuously enough in October 1945, two months after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, with a letter to actress Donna Reed from Ed Tompkins, her former high school chemistry teacher who moved on to become a scientist at Oak Ridge. He asked if she thought a “movie could be planned and produced to successfully impress upon the public the horrors of atomic warfare.” Mitchell sets his tale up as a series of battles. The primary one was between the scientists, including Tompkins and Robert Oppenheimer, who were desperate to control nuclear proliferation and the deployment of nuclear weapons, and the military, led by Gen. Leslie R. Groves, director of the Manhattan project. Reed’s husband, talent agent Tony Owen, helped pitch the idea to MGM’s Louis B. Mayer, who showed a keen interest in the project. Paramount’s Hal B. Wallis had a similar idea, with “controversial novelist Ayn Rand” writing the screenplay. MGM lined up Bob Considine, author of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, to write theirs. MGM talked to President Harry Truman, who was on board, even coming up with an apocalyptic title: “We are either at the beginning or the end.” Wallis’ less dramatic title was Top Secret. In mid-December 1945, the New York Times published a story about the “Hollywood Atom Sweepstakes.” Wallis eventually dropped out of the race. Excellent research and rich dialogue give Mitchell’s book a novelistic flair as he recounts the battles between MGM and the military over actor choices, deletions, revisions, and retakes concerning fact vs. fiction, with the military and the White House usually winning. The Beginning of the End opened with a notice indicating that it was “basically a true story.”
Reel film meets real history in this scintillating tale.Pub Date: July 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62097-573-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
Thus the second most costly war in American history, whose “outcome seemed little short of a miracle.” A sterling account.
A master storyteller’s character-driven account of a storied year in the American Revolution.
Against world systems, economic determinist and other external-cause schools of historical thought, McCullough (John Adams, 2001, etc.) has an old-fashioned fondness for the great- (and not-so-great) man tradition, which may not have much explanatory power but almost always yields better-written books. McCullough opens with a courteous nod to the customary villain in the story of American independence, George III, who turns out to be a pleasant and artistically inclined fellow who relied on poor advice; his Westmoreland, for instance, was a British general named Grant who boasted that with 5,000 soldiers he “could march from one end of the American continent to the other.” Other British officers agitated for peace, even as George wondered why Americans would not understand that to be a British subject was to be free by definition. Against these men stood arrayed a rebel army that was, at the least, unimpressive; McCullough observes that New Englanders, for instance, considered washing clothes to be women’s work and so wore filthy clothes until they rotted, with the result that Burgoyne and company had a point in thinking the Continentals a bunch of ragamuffins. The Americans’ military fortunes were none too good for much of 1776, the year of the Declaration; at the slowly unfolding battle for control over New York, George Washington was moved to despair at the sight of sometimes drunk soldiers running from the enemy and of their officers “who, instead of attending to their duty, had stood gazing like bumpkins” at the spectacle. For a man such as Washington, to be a laughingstock was the supreme insult, but the British were driven by other motives than to irritate the general—not least of them reluctance to give up a rich, fertile and beautiful land that, McCullough notes, was providing the world’s highest standard of living in 1776.
Thus the second most costly war in American history, whose “outcome seemed little short of a miracle.” A sterling account.Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7432-2671-2
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
IN THE NEWS
PERSPECTIVES
An inspiring memoir that will thrill soccer fans as well as social justice activists.
The soccer superstar discusses her life on and off the field and how she has used celebrity in the service of social justice.
Rapinoe grew up in “an athletic family” in small-town Northern California. Early in childhood, she and her identical twin, Rachael, revealed exceptional physical gifts. Both began playing soccer on a boys team at age 6 and quickly overshadowed peers with their "instinctive hand-eye coordination and physical fearlessness.” Later, they played on an all-female team their father created until both were selected to join a bigger, more competitive one in Sacramento. As their soccer skills developed, the sisters discovered a passion for justice of all kinds. “My sister and I have this in common: nothing riles us up more than bullying, cheating, unfairness,” writes the author. Eventually, this passion for social justice became the cornerstone of Rapinoe's stances on such issues as LGBTQ+ rights, pay equity in sports, and the Black Lives Matter movement. When the author reached college in 2004, she surpassed Rachael as an athlete and received an invitation to play in the FIFA Under-19 Women's World Championship in Thailand. In 2006, she joined the U.S. national team as the "youngest and least experienced player.” A major knee injury put her out of contention for the 2008 Olympic team but also taught her the meaning of patience and humility. After college, she turned professional and, in 2012, publicly came out as a lesbian. After a World Cup victory in 2015, Rapinoe became a vocal advocate for pay increases for female athletes, and in 2016, she took a knee to protest racial injustice. This candid memoir about an outspoken White athlete who has consciously "extend[ed] [her] privilege" to those marginalized people both in and out of the sporting world is sure to engage general audiences and soccer fans alike.
An inspiring memoir that will thrill soccer fans as well as social justice activists.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-984881-16-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 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.
