by Gregory P. Wilson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 12, 2014
An exhaustive biography, which serves as a welcome addition to American Civil War and Quaker history.
Wilson chronicles the life of Jonathan Roberts, a Quaker who served in the Union Army during the Civil War despite his pacifist convictions.
In the late 1840s, Roberts, an educated Quaker from New Jersey, moved to Virginia with other members of the Religious Society of Friends. They hoped to use their land to demonstrate that Virginia farms could be profitable without the use of slave labor. Roberts’ activism was not confined to modeling behavior, and he became known as an outspoken abolitionist voice in the area. As tensions mounted leading up to the Civil War, Roberts became a target for secessionist anger. When the war broke out, Roberts and his family declined to flee to the North, instead remaining in Union-occupied Alexandria. President Lincoln acknowledged the difficult situation of Quakers, writing: “Your people—Friends—have had, and are having, a very great trial. On principle, and faith, opposed to both war and oppression, they can only practically oppose oppression by war. In this hard dilemma, some have chosen one horn and some the other.” Roberts chose the side of war, joining the Union Army as a non-arms-bearing scout and serving as a sheriff. In the capacity of scout, Roberts witnessed combat in encounters such as the First Battle of Bull Run. Wilson—who is Roberts’ great-great-grandson—leaves no stone unturned in his search for the facts of Roberts’ life. The plethora of details on land deals, lawsuits and genealogy can become tiresome, particularly in the prewar and postwar sections of the book. However, Wilson does a fantastic job of capturing the escalating tensions in Virginia, as disagreements over slavery and secession go from election campaign smears to violent harassment to skirmishes over flags to outright warfare. He also uncovers fascinating accounts of relations between neighbors on opposing sides of the conflict—and those whose loyalties and convictions shifted. Wilson’s attention to detail allows readers to gain a more nuanced understanding of the gray areas, contradictions and compromises encountered during the Civil War.
An exhaustive biography, which serves as a welcome addition to American Civil War and Quaker history.Pub Date: Dec. 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-1499289480
Page Count: 732
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
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
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 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
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