A start toward recording the history of an underdocumented, influential presence in American society, but be warned: The...
An idiosyncratic account of Arab immigrants and their native-born children in America.
Orfalea (Writing/Pitzer College) doesn’t trade in ethnic history on a par with, say, Manuel Gonzales’s Mexicanos (1999) or Michael Coffey’s The Irish in America (1998). Rather, he offers a family-and-friends-based account of the three major waves of Arab immigration to the U.S., as with his reminiscence of a colleague: “In the dead of winter, in January 2005, Hisham Sharabi died of cancer in Beirut at 77. If not Palestine, at least he had palms and the sea and his beauties nearby. From my perch in California looking out at the snowy San Bernardinos, I see him smile.” Among his interviewees are writer Vance Bourjaily, “one of the only serious American novelists of Lebanese heritage to make a name for himself in fiction” (William Peter Blatty, of Exorcist fame, lacks sufficient gravitas to count); a Yemeni doctor in Michigan who has given up haunting libraries for fear of falling victim to the Patriot Act; actor F. Murray Abraham, who remarks, “I’m half Syrian, half Italian—of course I empathize with any Mediterranean people, especially Semites”; Paul Orfalea, founder of the Kinko’s copy shop chain; and entertainers Casey Kasem and Danny Thomas, ever careful to avoid alienating the mainstream audience. When Orfalea does write straight history, he often falls into error: Estevanico, servant of conquistadors, was a Moor, not an Arab, and was killed by Zunis, not Navajos; Hadj Ali, one of the first Muslim immigrants to America, was a Greek convert who used his birth name for official purposes, not an Arab who was forced by unfeeling immigration officials to take a non-Islamic name. Such slips serve the author’s contention that Arabs have suffered aplenty in the New World, but they undermine his authority.
A start toward recording the history of an underdocumented, influential presence in American society, but be warned: The book has mistakes.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-56656-597-9
Page Count: 457
Publisher: Olive Branch/Interlink
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A colorful, persuasive re-evaluation of 1920s New York City, pinpointing it as the birthplace of modern American culture. Douglas (American Studies/Columbia Univ.) draws on familiar sources—memoirs by such Jazz Age novelists as Fitzgerald and Hemingway, the works of Harlem Renaissance writers, biographies of all these figures, virtually every academic text ever written about the period—but puts them together in exciting new ways to create a portrait of New York that includes black and white artists, men and women, elite and popular culture, architecture and aviation. She characterizes the 1920s' search for ``terrible honesty'' (Raymond Chandler's phrase) as a revolt against the sentimental, moralizing, matriarchal Victorian ethos she explored in The Feminization of American Culture (1977). Yet she links the unique ``adrenaline rush that was modernism'' to historical traits of American life that New York intellectuals rediscovered and claimed as their own: ``the flickering sense of place, purpose, and identity'' in the works of Twain, Melville, Hawthorne, and Poe, the pessimism that ``gained more in energy than it lost in hope.'' Her assessment of African-American music's impact on the 1920s and of black writers' complex relationship with the Jazz Age forcefully makes the point that American culture has always been a black-and- white affair—for people on both sides of the color line. Douglas sees 1920s New York as standing at a turning point, with the new mass media drawing their energy and structure from older forms of folk culture. She captures its essence in a lively narrative sprinkled with fabulous quotes: Zelda Fitzgerald remarking of the new tanning craze, ``I love those beautiful tan people. They seem so free of secrets''; singer Todd Duncan writing of his audition for George Gershwin, ``Imagine a Negro auditioning for a Jew, singing an old Italian aria.'' Analyzing this rich material with undogmatic passion, Douglas rescues multiculturalism from clichÇ and reclaims it as America's defining characteristic. Groundbreaking cultural history.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-374-11620-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
An exhaustive, ice-cold briefing that tracks the martial art of sniping from colonial America through the brushfire conflicts of the present day. Focusing on how regular (as opposed to guerrilla) ground forces have employed snipers over the years, British historian Gilbert traces the origins of long-range sharpshooting to the late 18th century, when rifles began to replace muskets as the military's primary weapons. He goes on to show how snipers (named after an elusive game bird) proved their tactical value for both sides in the US Civil War, visiting sudden death on unsuspecting foes at long distances. The author offers a wealth of anecdotal evidence documenting how snipers continued to distinguish themselves on killing grounds throughout the world, thanks to constant advances in the design of bolt-action firearms, high- velocity bullets, telescopic sights, and allied tools of the lethal trade. At almost every opportunity, Gilbert stresses the economy of sniping, which in certain circumstances can make a single rifleman as effective as an infantry squad. In Vietnam, for example, troops fired 50,000 rounds for each enemy casualty, while sniper/spotter teams expended 1.7 rounds per kill. Precision of this order is not easily achieved, and the author devotes considerable attention to the rigorous training required to develop a first-rate sniper. Covered as well are such topics as the antipathy of field-grade officers toward lone-wolf operatives not under their direct command, camouflage, the countermeasures available to those being stalked, the intelligence potential of snipers, wound ballistics (a section the squeamish would be well advised to skip), and the future of freelance combatants in the age of electronic battlefields. The low-key text also provides detailed technical specifications on the sniper rifles and ammunition used by Western nations. Gilbert's very specialized manual of arms will appeal to the Soldier of Fortune crowd as well as military history buffs. (16 pages photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Feb. 20, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-11894-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1994
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