Popular history at its best: a narrative with attitude—thoroughly researched, gracefully written. Possibly a classic. (62...
A sweeping, swirling history of the end of WWI and the ensuing struggle for peace—and of the inadvertent and ineluctable construction of the foundation of WWII.
Dallas (The Final Act: The Roads to Waterloo, 1997, etc.), born in London, educated at Berkeley, and now residing in France, is uniquely fit for this daunting task: He knows the languages, has explored the trenches, and has read the relevant published and archival documents. Consistent with his belief that history is local, he focuses on the geography of the north of western Europe, reminding us that “it is one large open plain. Europe’s history is constructed on that fact.” He begins his story as the war is ending. The US—despite its peculiar, disobliging insistence on keeping its forces independent—has finally arrived and, despite some initial failures, has provided the decisive boost in manpower and morale. Dallas crisply describes the military maneuvers that forced the German capitulation—and does not neglect the sanguinary details: “Horrors that would have been incredible to anyone before 1914 were the daily dose for soldiers on the front in 1918.” He deftly shifts venues—London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Washington—letting us know what is happening and sketching portraits of many of the principal players, pointing his finger to events of significance not just in the geopolitical struggle but in the smaller, human ones as well. Thus, we watch the young poet Wilfred Owen fall during the final days; we see Lincoln Steffens interview Lenin. Still, it’s the leaders whose stories grip us. Woodrow Wilson’s myopic insistence on placing his League of Nations at the top of the armistice agenda, Lloyd George’s physical agitation before he rose to speak, Clemenceau’s determination to remain at work after surviving an assassin’s bullet. And—most amazing—the Germans’ refusal to acknowledge that they had even lost the war.
Popular history at its best: a narrative with attitude—thoroughly researched, gracefully written. Possibly a classic. (62 b&w photographs, 4 maps)Pub Date: May 24, 2001
ISBN: 1-58567-157-6
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
HISTORY | MODERN | MILITARY | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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